Twilight Zone v09n02 (1989 06) (noads)

3NN3A3HD

DISPLAY UNTIL MAY 22

asa id 9nix mi

DOT 1?S1 3D1M lii361V

090 3*407 UCGN> I T T 3Db7 CO 78

OOM NOT

22 RETURN OF THE ZONE: PART 5 by J. Michael Straczynski

The final chapter of our series on the new Twilight Zone TV show.

Beaumont Lives! A Special Tribute
48 REMEMBERING CHARLES BEAUMONT by Roger Anker

A look back at one of The Twilight’s Zone’s most brilliant writers.

54 YOUR THREE MINUTES ARE UP by George Clayton Johnson

A long-distance call from an old friend.

66 ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY: PART 11

by Kathryn Drennan and J. Michael Straczynski

Our continuing guide to Serlings second fantasy series.

79 TZ TELEPLAY: NOTHING IN THE DARK
by George Clayton Johnson

Page 42

6 IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE
8 EDITOR'S NOTE
10 LETTERS
12 BOOKS by Ed Bryant
16 SCREEN by Gahan Wilson
41 TZ QUIZ

88 TZ SCREENING ROOM

18 THE MIND'S EAR by Jillian Smith and Margaret Mayo McGlynn

A special report on the audio fiction experience.

Cover art by Gottfried Helnweinn

Rod Selling's Twilight Zone Magazine (Issn # 0279-6090) June, 1989, Volume 9, Number 2, is published bimonthly (February,
p'kW ' 9? ober - December) in the United States and simultaneously in Canada by TZ Publications, a division of
Toso'ht T 7 p b m hln 5 Cor D 01 j c 0 ",'. 40 ? ^ Atom* South, New York, NY. 10016-8802. Telephone (212) 779-8900. Copyright c
1989 by TZ Publications. Rod Serlings The Twilight Zone Magazine is published pursuant to a license from Carol Serling and
V a ^ tnte , rpnS f S ' a < 7z Vls,0n ° f V,acom International, Inc All rights reserved. Second-class postage paid at New York, N Y and
at additional mailing offices. Return postage must accompany all unsolicited material. The publisher assumes no responsibility
AH °i F’sohci ted materials. All rights reserved on material accepted for publication unless otherwise specified.

sei \ t . to Rod Serlings The Twilight Zone Magazine or to its editors are assumed intended for publication. Nothing may
be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Any similarity between persons appearing in
fiction and real persons living or dead is coincidental. Single copies $2.50 in U.S., U.S. military bases, and U.S. possessions, $3 00
elsewhere. Subscriptions: U.S.. U.S. militarv. and IIS nr*cc*»cci™>c Sit; <;n. da an ah i u ue

"V c u ,,v 1S , coincidental. Single copies *2.50 in U.S., U.S. military bases, and U.S. possessions, $3.

elsewhere Subscriptions: U.S.. U.S. military, and U.S. possessions, $15.50; $18.50 elsewhere. All orders must be paid in U
currency. Member, Audtt Bureau of CirculaHons. Postmaster: Send address changes to Rod Setting's The Twilight Zone Magazi,
P.O. Box 252, Mt. Morns, IL 61054-0252. Printed in the U.S.A. 5

Page 79

JUST ANOTHER PERFECT DAY by John Varley

What if today were really the first day of your life?

TZ FIRST: MAGGIE by Dan Bennett
Only she knew the secret of the perfect gift.

TZ FIRST: SPUDS by Terry Runte

His side dish refused to stay on the sidelines.

THE CARNIVAL by Charles Beaumont
A carnival's magic may sometimes turn dark and strange.
TIMED EXPOSURE by Richard Christian Matheson
The camera's eye can reveal more than one wants to see.
EXODUS: 22:18 by Nancy Baker
He'd vowed to destroy the Queen of Darkness.

26

34

38

42

58

62

IT

♦ "

IN THE

TWILIGHT ZONE

Television Land

ome evenings, when we're working late on the magazine, we get a
weird feeling that if we turned around quickly enough, the walls
would peel back to reveal a television crew set up behind us. At times,
it seems as if we're trapped inside a TV program. We're not sure if it's
a comedy or a drama, but all the elements are here: Tension and excitement,
tragedy mixed with broad farce, the usual cast of eccentric characters ....

If you think about it, we're not the only people who look at the world this
way —everyone does. Look around you. TV is our frame of reference; our com-
mon language. Though we may not want to admit it, television - with all its
faults — is the most important art form of this century.

So come with us as we pay tribute to that art form; past, present, and fu-
ture. Our first presentation on the "TZ Network" is a special feature on one of
the most influential fantasy writers of our time -Charles Beaumont, a brilliant
and prolific screenwriter who was second only to Rod Serling in his contribu-
tions to The Twilight Zone. We begin with a recently rediscovered Beaumont
tale, "The Carnival," one of several previously unpublished stories in a new col-
lection, Charles Beaumont: Selected Stories (Dark Harvest Press), edited by
Roger Anker. In his essay, "Remembering Charles Beaumont," Anker gives us an
intimate look back at this remarkable writer through the eyes of those who
knew him best.

One of the central members of Beaumont's circle, George Clayton Johnson,
contributes an intriguing meditation on his association with Beaumont in "Your
Three Minutes Are Up." Co-author of Logan's Run with William F. Nolan, and
a screenwriter on Twilight Zone— The Movie, Johnson wrote several of The
Twilight Zone's most memorable episodes, including this issue's TZ Teleplay,
"Nothing in the Dark." (That's young George Clayton Johnson with Robert Red-
ford in the photo on the contents page, by the way!)

As evidence that the creative fire of fantasy is still alive and well in Televi-
sion Land, Kathryn M. Drennan and J. Michael Straczynski continue their se-
ries on Rod Seriing's Night Gallery; and Straczynski offers his final chapter in
the stranger-than-fiction saga of the making of the new syndicated Twilight
Zone (aka TZ3") in Return of the Zone. And, as proof that there's more to fan-
tasy than meets the eyes, Jillian Smith and Margaret Mayo McGlynn give us
their personal impressions of that very old and very new medium, audio fic-
tion, in a special section called "The Mind's Ear."

We also present several fictional "mind-plays" this issue, beginning with
Just Another Perfect Day"; a compelling tale about the nature of memory and
love, by John Varley, award-winning author of the Gaea Trilogy. We've also got
a chiller from Richard Christian Matheson entitled "Timed Exposure," as well as
two TZ Firsts: "Maggie," by Dan Bennett (a graduate of the Clarion Writing
Workshop), is a bittersweet tale of simple magic. "Spuds," by Terry Runte, is a
wonky look at the world of talking tubers. Runte has published a lot of hu-
morous nonfiction, but this is his first fiction sale. And finally, Nancy Baker,
whose story, "The Party Over There" (April '88), was one of our earliest TZ Firsts,
rejoins us with "Exodus 22:18," a nasty little trip into the mind of a maniac

With that, it's time we got back to work here in the TZ soundstage. But
dont go away. We'll be right back after this brief commercial message. . .

John Varley

6 TWILIGHT ZONE

PHOTO BY RICIA MAINHARnT

EDITOR’S

NOTES

Synergy

CORPORATE
President and Publisher
S. Edward Orenstein
Executive Vice Presidents, Corporate
Brian D. Orenstein
Russell T. Orenstein

Associate Publisher and Consulting Editor

Carol Serling
EDITORIAL

Editorial Director, Corporate
Marc Lichter
Editor-in-Chief
Tappan King

Managing Editor
Peter R. Emshwiller
Assistant Editor
Margaret Mayo McGlynn
Reader

Rich Friedman

Contributing Editors

Gahan Wilson • James Verniere
Edward Bryant
J. Michael Straczynski
Kathryn M. Drennan

ART

Design Director, Corporate
Michael Monte
Art Director
Tom Waters
Art Production
Mark VanTine

PRODUCTION
Vice President, Production

Stephen J. Fallon

Typesetting

Irma Lance • Ron Stark

ADMINISTRATION AND FINANCE
Vice President, Treasurer

Chris Grossman

Accounting Manager
Saul Steinhaus
Accounting Assistants
Asnar Angeles • Evelyn Cruz
John Ubanwa
Office Manager
Margaret Inzana
Office Assistant
Gina Cruz
Traffic

Oniel Pagan
Traffic Assistant
Gloria Cruz

ADVERTISING

Advertising Production Manager

Theresa Martorano
Advertising Assistant
Belinda Davila

CIRCULATION / PROMOTION
Vice President, Sales and Operations

Michael Dillon

Subscription Manager
Dean Lage
Promotion Manager

Cecelia Giunta

Promotion Assistant
Suzie Goodman
Direct Sales Manager
Judy Linden
A.rt Designer

Gregory Lawrence Stewart

ast Halloween, I found myself in the middle of a debate between two
of Britain's most terrifying writers. When I say "in the middle," I mean
it literally. I was part of a panel discussion at the World Fantasy Con-
vention in London about the differences between working in print and
in film. On my right sat James Herbert, Britain's most successful horror writer,
whose novel. The Enchanted Cottage, is currently being adapted for film. On
my left was Clive Barker, the phenomenally popular author of The Books of
Blood, who directed Hellraiser and produced its sequel.

"I myself would never work in film," Herbert was saying. "It would be too
frustrating. When I'm writing a novel, I have complete control over how every-
thing turns out. Once it gets into the hands of filmmakers, it invariably changes
into something different. That's why I never let others adapt my novels for film
unless I'm reasonably sure they're going to do things my way."

Barker had a different point of view: "I enjoy filmmaking. It's a different
experience entirely from writing prose. It's rather fun, actually, so long as you
go into it with the understanding that you're part of a team, and you can't do
it all yourself. You have to surrender yourself to the process, but if you do, you
can get amazing things done. Besides, if you've got fantastically talented people
working with you, you'd be a fool not to make use of those talents."

There's a lot to be said for James Herbert's fiercely independent stance. It's
important to have faith in your own vision, and to be willing to act on that
vision, no matter what anyone says — especially if you choose to devote your-
self to a creative profession such as writing. And it's very satisfying to be pro-
ducer, director, cast and crew of your own mind-movie, with a multi-million
dollar special-effects budget you can put to use at the turn of a phrase.

But there's a kind of magic that only happens when people work together.
Collaboration kindles a kind of synergy that can result in something truly origi-
nal. That's why writers like Clive Barker, who have achieved a great deal of
success in print, are drawn to an inherently collaborative art form like film.
Even if you know your work may be altered to suit a casting or location
change, a director's wishes, or even an accountant's budget, it can be a genuine
pleasure to be part of a group of creative minds, working together to achieve
a common vision.

There's a persistent myth that writing is the most solitary of activities. But
that's not entirely true. One of the "trade secrets" of many successful writers is
that they make a point of interacting with others, some by collaborating on
projects with other writers, others by "workshopping" their writing with
friends, family members, fellow writers, or a sympathetic editor.

It's not just the enthusiasm and positive reinforcement that makes sharing
your work with others worthwhile; it's what that give and take brings to the
work itself.

The heart of the writing process, or any artistic endeavor, lies in commu-
nicating your own experiences as vividly and honestly as possible with others,
so they can feel what you feel. The more friends you have around you to feed
that experience with their own, the more believable your own work will be.
And the more you understand how others think and feel, the more likely you
are to touch another person's heart with your words.

Tappan King
Editor-in-Chief

8 TWILIGHT ZONE

LETTERS

□ ACK IN 1985, 1 WAS GIVEN AN ISSUE
of Twilight Zone Magazine as a
present when I was laid up in a
hospital after an operation. It
was given to me since I'd always liked
the series. I found your magazine had
stories that were ideally suited for the
short bursts of strength I had during my
recovery. I loved the magazine, and
soon took out my own subscription so
I wouldn't miss an issue. Since then, I
have read every issue from cover to
cover. (My favorite story was "Dreams
of Drowning," by Wells Lord Hough. I
hope to see more of his worl* in your
magazine.) Keep up the good work.

Susan M. Skibba
Milwaukee, WI

I HAVE BEEN READING TWILIGHT ZONE FOR
so long, I can't remember when I started.
It is my favorite magazine, and the only
one I've continued subscribing to since I
went back to school for a "mid-life
career change."

You've run many wonderful stories
that have continued to haunt me months
— even years— after I've read them. I
also love your book reviews, and I find
your excerpts from novels just fantastic
(I couldn't wait for Swan Song to come
out after reading your preview.)

The stories I care for least are the
traditional ones where I know the pro-
tagonist is going to endure some ter-
rible fate in the end.

But, by and large, I'm hooked.
Keep 'em coming!

Nancy Preston
Lynwood, CA

I THOUGHT I'D WRITE YOU A LETTER AND
tell you what I felt about your maga-
zine. First, I'll start with what I did like.

I love the TZ scripts. They are very in-
teresting, and I try to watch for the
ones I've read to come on television;
it's neat to see how they are done. I
also love the non-fiction features you
have. The film previews and articles
on strange phenomena are consistently
refreshing.

The fantasy fiction stories are also
a favorite of mine. But here comes the

problem. The bulk of your fiction
seems to be horror. I prefer the TZ
"fantasy" stories that make you think—
the ones that express an interesting
idea — far more than the horror stories
where some innocent victim suffers. I
also never know whether a story will
be horror or fantasy (maybe you could
put them in different sections?).

Karen Boyer
Sterling, MA

Thank you for resuming publication of
Rod Serling's Twilight Zone teleplays in
the magazine. I let my subscription lapse
for a while, but now have renewed it.

Serling's work helped fire and
shape my imagination when I was grow-
ing up — I suspect the same is true for a
lot of us in our mid-forties — and I've
been very pleased to see my children
enjoying the Twilight Zone rebroadcasts.

Thank you again for bring this
original work back to life.

Corey Phelps
Des Moines, IA

A WELL-INTENTIONED FRIEND OF MINE ASKED
me the other day what TZ has that
makes me buy it so faithfully. First, let
me tell you what you don't have. You
don't have the most information on the
latest sci-fi megaturkeys. To be honest,
the movie mags do that better, especial-
ly since you dropped your color sec-
tion. (Bring it back!) You don't have the
goriest pictures. You don't even have
the most short stories. (Other maga-
zines give you more words of fiction
for your dollar.)

But the stories you do have get to
me in ways others don't. ("Wolf Trap-
ping" in the latest issue literally kept me
up all night!) More important, you take
my favorite kind of entertainment more
seriously than anybody else does.

Here's what I mean: Each time I
finish an issue, I feel like I've had a
great party with a bunch of really
strange people who like me, and want to
talk about things that they liked (or
hated— that's just as good) with me.
You guys really think about what you
put into each issue (unlike some brain-

dead publications I could name.)

If I had one complaint (or request,
rather), it would be that you do less
about more things. I'd like your opinions
on everything that's going on in fantasy
and horror these days — movies, artwork,
games, conventions. I'd also like to see
short articles on the different kinds of
fantasy out there. (It's easy to get lost.)
But I guess that would take twice as
many pages, and I can barely afford to
buy each issue as it is! Never mind.

Anyway, thanks for giving me
something to look forward to. (Loved the
"Drowning Man" cover, by the way!)

Megan Cooper
Lakeland, LA

To MANY OF US WHO GREW UP WATCHING
The Twilight Zone, and continue to
watch it in endless reruns. Rod Serling
has become something of a mythical
figure. In "Return of the Zone" (Feb 89),
J. Michael Straczynski casually drops
the names of two "lost" Twilight Zone
outlines by Rod Serling that will not be
produced for the current series. Just
reading the titles, "The Theatre" and
"Osgood and the Warlock," is enough to
make a Serling fan's mouth water, and
mind wonder.

Some of the new episodes have
been disappointing, but overall TZ3
looks promising. ("The Hellgrammite
Method" would have made a great
Night Gallery ). Mr. Straczynski's "in-
sider's view" has made watching the
show a much more enjoyable experi-
ence for me.

Timothy M. Walters
Muskogee, OK

We welcome letters on any subject of
interest to our readers. All letters must
contain your name and address and are
assumed to be intended for publication,
unless you request otherwise. Letters
submitted become the property of the
Publisher, and we reserve the right to
edit them for length or suitability. Send let-
ters to TZ LETTERS DEPARTMENT, 401
Park Avenue South, New York, NY
10016-8802.

10 TWILIGHT ZONE

BOOKS

EDWARD BRYANT

New Wave Horror, New Age Fiction— and Beyond

□ live Barker is the very image
of the sort of fellow who many
writers would love to become.
Aside from being young and
British, he's a very successful novelist,
short-story writer, graphic artist, play-
wright, and film director with a global
following. Articulate, intelligent, and
witty, he also takes great bookjacket
photographs.

While he's perhaps best known (or
perhaps most notorious) for the super-
charged energy level and immoderate
voice of his prose. Barker loves to inject
gallows humor into his fiction. However
grim the events of a given story, the au-
thor defends his word-plays and manic
images: "It's a very British way to look
at the surface of literature. Look at
practically any of the Jacobeans or the
Elizabethan playwrights. The surface
works. It's lively with all that kind of
material. I think what it signals to the
reader is: I care enough about the sur-
face of this fiction to give you many
kinds of pleasures."

Below the Surface

Some of those pleasures are terrible
puns. In the title short novel of his new
collection Cabal (Poseidon Press,
$18.95, 377 pp„ ISBN 0-671-62688-4), a
rather endearing character who hap-
pens to be an undead ghoul is, at one
point, disemboweled by the serial-killer
villain of the piece. The dead man stands
there, watching his guts spill out on the
ground. "Help me," he cries out, "I'm
coming undone." Perhaps that sort of
thigh-slapping humor is not to every
reader's taste, but to many of us it's a
welcome note of grace in an otherwise
violent, horrific scene.

After his grim first novel. The Dam-
nation Game, Barker claims that its
successors, Weaveworld and Cabal, are
meant to be optimistic and healing.

Cabal does not, on the surface, seem
that fruitful a vehicle for constructive
optimism.

It's about a psychiatric patient named
Boone who is manipulated by his doc-
tor into thinking that he (Boone) is
completely looney tunes — is, in fact, a
serial killer. Fleeing the malign shrink's
setup, Boone seeks sanctuary in a vast
necropolis located in a deserted town
somewhere in northern Alberta. There
he encounters the Nightbreed, a collec-
tion of flesh-eating ghouls (though nice
folks otherwise) living beneath the
cemetery. One of them says, "Being
dead isn't bad. It isn't even that differ-
ent. It's just. . .unexpected."

The unlucky protagonist ends up
dead and reborn into monsterdom, as
all the while his mortal lover continues
attempting to recover him. The subter-
ranean monsters find themselves menaced
by a human monster far more malevo-
lent than anything lurking in a cob-
webbed tomb. The novel has its com-
plement of violence, not to mention a
genuinely askew sex/love scene, which
the author says spins off of "a sort of

S&M Christianity."

And yes, there's a happy ending ....
The novel does end up both healing
and optimistic Granting certain condi-
tions . . . Barker says there will be two
more short novels in this series. Addi-
tionally, he'll be writing and directing a
big-screen production of Cabal for
Morgan Creek Productions, the folks
who brought you David Cronenberg's
Dead Ringers.

One of Barker's accomplishments
in Cabal is to explore offbeat notions of
death. He has a great intellectual inter-
est in death, be it collecting famous last
words (Oscar Wilde on his deathbed
looking up at the wallpaper and saying,
"Either the wallpaper goes or I go."), or
admiring the visionary paintings of
Stanley Spencer in the Tate. He recog-
nizes the importance of the concept of
death as something that can be explored
through horror fiction. Just as Stephen
King defines such vicarious experiences
as roller-coaster rides and reading hor-
ror novels, in Cabal, Barker rehearses us
for death.

While some of the heedless, head-

12 TWILIGHT ZONE

long pacing of early Barker is missing
in Cabal, the novel profits from an in-
creased and much more fluid maturity.

Cabal is actually a mutated and
much-augmented American version of
the sixth and final volume of Barker's
seminal work. The Books of Blood.
The eponymous short novel is brand-
new. The final framing vignette from
the original edition has been dropped
(it now appears in the handsome hard-
back Putnam omnibus of the first three
volumes, titled The Books of Blood).
The four longer pieces of fiction from
volume six have been retained. "The Life
of Death," "How Spoilers Bleed," and
"Twilight at the Towers" are here, along
with the novella, "The Last Illusion."
"The Last Illusion" is a marvelous piece
about tough detective Harry d'Amour's
run-in with the supernatural. It's the
best chunk of hardboiled occult fiction
since William Hjortsberg’s Falling Angel.

All in all. Cabal is a remarkably
satisfying book; certainly one of the
best horror collections of the year.

Jack in the Box

Here's another fascinating collection.
It's not marketed or packaged as a col-
lection. No one concerned would ever
admit it's a collection. Let's just avoid
strife and refer to it as a "novel." Sort of
a novel. Whatever it is. Dead Lines (Ban-
tam, $3.95, 309 pp„ ISBN 0-553-
27633-6) is certainly the tightest and
best-written of the five collaborative
books thus far published by John Skipp
and Craig Spector. Dead Lines concerns
Jack Rowan, a nightmarish twit of a
New York writer, all twisted ego and
jerk-off sensibilities. Jack hangs himself
in his best friend's loft; then deeply
regrets his impetuous act. He wants to
come back. A lot, In the meantime, the
loft has been rented by Meryl and Katie,
two tough, vulnerable, with-it Man-
hattan young women. Katie once was
Jack's lover, but doesn't know her new
abode is where he offed himself. Meryl
finds and reads a secret stash box filled
with manuscripts— Jack's unpublished
stories. We get to read the stories, too.
Thus the aspect of Dead Lines that
cleverly makes it a collection. Tenant
rights in Midtown not being everything
they could be. Jack gets the opportuni-
ty to attempt a little repossession — of
Katie's body.

Jack Rowan isn't all that bad a
writer. A number of his stories have
been published separately under the
Skipp and Spector bylines, jointly and
separately. Clearly Harlan Ellison is at
least one of Rowan's important influ-
ences. The quality of Rowan's prose
ranges from so-so to pretty damned

good. For example, "Gentlemen" (from
The Architecture of Fear) is a flat-out
fine story.

Where Skipp and Spector fall short
of writing an unreserved tour de force
is in the integration (or lack thereof) of
Jack Rowan's fiction and the lives of the
characters. Some of the stories within
the greater story don't seem to have
any great reason for being there, other
than to bulk out the central conceit.
Skipp and Spector needed to play more
with the blurring of fantasy and reality,
life and fiction, fabrication and truth,
paying more attention to all the ragged
areas where people's internal stories are
seamless with their external existences.

But, in any case, it's good to see the
graph of the Skipp and Spector 's career
continue to climb at escape velocity.

New Age Fiction

Like a blind, snuffling predator, the
great New York publishing beast senses
that there's a vast untapped consumer
market out there for an enormous spec-
trum of books that can somehow be
tagged''New Age." No one’s quite sure
what belongs on the New Age aisle in
Waldenbooks or B. Dalton's, but there's

money to be made regardless. Nonfic-
tion's been one kettle of eels. Fiction is
another. Do New Age people read fic-
tion other than Jacob Atabet, Olaf
Stapledon, and Walden 111 Yes, proba-
bly. For years now, there have been
signs that various trade publishers would
start up slickly packaged lines of New
Age fiction. So far, it hasn't happened.
It will. The marketplace will dictate it.
But the publishers paradoxically have
been resisting mightily. They just seem
very unsure of how to sell novels that
drop the fantasy label, yet still deal
with communication with alien and/or
dead entities, dolphin wisdom, crystals
of power, revelations from Atlantis,
and personal transformation to the nth
power.

According to a highly placed source
at Simon & Schuster, Pocket Books al-
most inaugurated a New Age fiction
line late last year. The debut offering was
to be a first novel by Devin O'Branagan
called Spirit Warriors ($4.50, 360 pp.,
ISBN 0-671-66774-2). The book appeared,
but was labeled horror. A failure of
nerve, apparently. The sales force wasn't
quite sure what New Age fiction was,
and how it could be sold in Dubuque.

“Jeter's
writing is

impressive,
intense, vivid,
and unflinch-
ingly honest.”

-RAMSEY CAMPBELL

“IN THE LAND
OF THE DEAD is

so powerful, it’s
numbing. Jeter’s
prose is lean as
a scalpel and
cuts to the bone.”

-J0ELANSDALE

IN THE LAND
OF THE DEAD
By K.W. Jeter

$3 95 @ ONYX

TWILIGHT ZONE 13

ft

BOOKS

And, indeed. I'm not sure I can de-
fine it, either. It would be too easy to
toss off New Age fiction as simply the
same old wine in new plastic cartons.
It's tempting to pick on the vocabulary.
(Before an operation, one character says
to another in Spirit Warriors, "Can you
leave your body, or do you want seda-
tion?") But that's not all of it, by any
means. What I take New Age work to
be attempting, by and large, is an in-
tegration of omni-cultural systems of
metaphysics, along with an emphasis
on personal, often radical, transforma-
tion. New Age thought seems to be
very open. Also very credulous.

Spirit Warriors starts in 1962 with
both the Antichrist and the Daughter of
God being reborn into the world at the
proper conjunction of planets. An age-
old play has begun again. We meet other
players who must make up their own
minds about which side they'll support:
Fay, the Gypsy psychic; Neva, the Native
American medicine woman; Eric, the
self-sufficient Vietnam vet.

As a novice effort, the novel's pret-
ty good, though it rapidly becomes ap-
parent that the writer's bitten off about
three thousand pages worth of material
and tried to compress it into a space one
tenth that. All the necessary writer's
skills are in abundant evidence, al-
though not yet fully tuned and polished.
Author O'Branagan gets a ten for ambi-
tion, perhaps a six or seven for execution.
As with so many other contemporary
fantasists, she has trouble striking the
proper balance of focus with her rotat-
ing cast of characters. Part of Stephen
King's magic is his ability to set down
just the right qualities and precise detail
that will satisfactorily sketch the por-
trait of a character with economy. Most

of his competition either includes too
much or too little — or simply the wrong
details altogether.

With O'Branagan, there are wonder-
ful backgrounds, particularly with her
Native American characters. All the de-
tail of ritual and ceremony ring very
true. The plot -well, it's as tested and
true as the cast-engine block in a 1964
Rambler. The level of writing is good,
every once in a while breaking into the
kind of evocative prose that communi-
cates far more than what the bare words
actually say on the printed page.

My qualm? That matter of focus
again. I felt far too infrequently that 1
was actually walking inside the skins of
the characters. Distance. Perhaps that's
the key. So many characters, so many
plotlines. It was hard to close the dis-
tance between printed page and human
heart.

Yet .... And yet. Unlike most other
books I read. Spirit Warriors insinuat-
ed itself into my dreams after I finished
the final chapters. That probably says
something. At the very least, it says
that I'll go out of my way to give Devin
O'Branagan's second novel a try.

Son of Slob

The indefatigable Rex Miller has pub-
lished his second novel, a follow-up to
last year's Slob. The new one's called
Frenzy (Onyx, $3.95, 302 pp., ISBN 0-
451-40105-0). It's another Jack Eichord
novel, at least nominally about a disaf-
fected Chicago homicide detective. But
just as Slob focused on its eponymous
five-hundred pound maniacal serial
killer, so Frenzy centers on another psy-
chopath. Frank Spain is the St. Louis
mob's chief hitman. Unfortunately, be-
ing on the road all the time takes a toll
on Spain's homelife. His wife runs off
with another man; his alienated teenage
daughter takes up with a sleazoid punk.
The boyfriend then inducts the girl into
the mysteries of sex, drugs, prostitu-
tion, and — ultimately— a downward spi-
ral of degradation that ends when the
girl stars in a Mexican snuff movie.
Eventually, her father finds all this out
and compiles a list of everyone respon-
sible. He is not happy. The psycho with
a career is now a psycho with a cru-
sade. Spain finds out that the ultimate
evil behind his daughter's death is the
very Mafia family he works for. A true
gonzo berserker, he starts slicing, dicing,
chopping, and flaying through the long
list of those who laid one perverted,
sadistic finger on his beloved only child.

The detective. Jack Eichord, comes
into the case when he's investigating
some of Spain's "professional" depreda-

tions. But he ultimately has even less to
do in this novel than in Slob. Clearly,
the focus of auctorial interest is on the
maniac with a mission.

Frenzy is not a particularly affecting
fantasy of revenge. Nothing Shakespear-
ian here. The novel is more a whipped
confection with a metallic, somewhat
bitter undertaste. Imagine a mutant
eclair with razor blades and rusty nails
inserted into the cream filling.

One thing Miller's novels have done
is to create considerable speculation
about their authorship. That the style
of each book careens wildly among
points of view, tense changes, and tonal
sea changes has led to speculation that
Rex Miller is either a very strange dude
— or he's a pseudonym for a whole
group of writers. For a while there was
reason for me to believe "Miller" was a
literary committee, much like the News-
day staff who jointly concocted Naked
Came the Stranger by "Penelope Ashe."
Now I know I was wrong, but it was a
great story while it lasted.

I had a wonderfully esoteric liter-
ary theory precariously balanced on
the observation that Frenzy's plot and
entire sensibility contain striking paral-
lels to Barry Malzberg's old Lone Wolf
series, written as Mike Barry. Could it
be that Malzberg was yet another po-
tential lobe of Rex Miller's brain?

Nope, as it turned out. And you
all will have at least another three Jack
Eichord adventures to look forward to,
including a visit from an old friend.
Then, somewhere in Miller's publishing
schedule, there will be a killer of a seri-
ous Vietnam novel called The Profane
Men. So stay tuned.

14 TWILIGHT ZONE

Short Takes

It's time to support your local Lansdale
again. In return. Uncle Joe will tell you
a bedtime story to curdle your spinal
fluid. New is Cold in July (Bantam,
$3.50, 208 pp., ISBN 0-553-28020-1) by
Joe R. Lansdale. You'll probably find
this one stashed over in the mystery/
suspense section. It's about a nice guy
with a wife and young son who, one
night after shooting an intruder, is
plunged into nightmare. Reality keeps
flip-flopping like a winter flu virus
mutating. The novel's a kicker about
parental responsibility, in which females
possess the only sensible moral com-
pass. But that doesn't stop boys from
doin' what boys gotta do. Spare and
uncompromising. Cold in July echoes
all sorts of tall, rangy writers of the
Forties and Fifties, but still ends up. its
own thing. Joe Bob, er, Ed says, "Check
it out."

There's a tough new kid in town,
and when he — and sometimes it's she —
talks, you'd better listen. What I'm
making reference to is Pulphouse (Pulp-
house Publishing, Box 1227, Eugene, OR
97440, $17.95, 267 pp.) edited by Kristine
Rusch and published by Dean Wesley
Smith. Pulphouse is nominally a quar-

terly periodical; in fact, it refers to it-
self as "the hardback magazine." But
when something howls like a jaguar,
pads like a jaguar, and has spots like a
jaguar, chances are that when it leaps
on you from a tree, you're dead meat.
So let's say that Pulphouse is a lot like
a four-times-a-year original anthology.
This first volume is a state-of-the-art
example of desktop publishing done
well. The production values and design
are executed marvelously. The format
for issue one is one thousand copies of
a sewn-binding hardback and two hun-
dred-fifty copies bound in leather, slip-
cased, and signed by all contributors.
Both editions are handsome.

The plan for Pulphouse is to rotate
the editorial focus over the course of a
year from horror (issue one) to specula-
tive fiction, fantasy, and science fiction.
The contents of the first horror number
are tremendously eclectic and largely suc-
cessful. There is a healthy mix of new
and familiar bylines. The excitement
and energy levels are high. A few of the
stories come across as the sort one oc-
casionally stereotypes as Clarion Work-
shop exercises — ambitious but arid. But
the rest carve out new territory. Michael
Bishop's 'A Father's Secret" is a nasty.

nasty examination of child abuse. Kij
Johnson's "Ferata" takes an M TV-paced
ride through vampirism and revenge
fantasies — if the word weren't so dumb,
"vampunk" might be appropriate. "The
Soft Whisper of Midnight Snow" by
Charles de Lint is a quietly paced tale of
enormous ascending power as an artist
learns the true nature of her work.
Harlan Ellison contributes a brand-new
hard-nosed romance about a guy who
falls hopelessly and helplessly in love
with the wrong woman. "Public Places"
by J. N. Williamson casts a remarkably
unblinking eye on a very bad man be-
set by occult forces in a dingy men's
room. It's a track-stopper. Such writers
as Kate Wilhelm, Ron Goulart, William
F. Wu, and Steve Rasnic Tern contribute
another sixteen stories. Additionally,
there's nonfiction, including Jack Wil-
liamson's pair of mini-essays about
style and tone, Kim Antieau examining
the nature of horror, and Jon Gustafson
writing about horror art. A lungful of
crisp autumn air in an increasingly stuffy
field, Pulphouse should be supported.

Another anthology well worth buy-
ing and reading is Tim Sullivan's Tropi-
cal Chills (Avon, $3.95, 258 pp., ISBN

CONTINUED ON PAGE 94

Dance a Cemetery Dance with Joe R
Lansdale, Richard Christian Matheson, Thomas F.
Monteleone, William ReUingJr., David B. Silva, and
Steve Rasnic Tern . . .

If you like Twilight Zone, you'll love Cemetery Dance,
featuring unique tales of dark fantasy by today's top best-sellers,
plus the best of the young "splatter punks." Each issue is jam-
packed with fiction, interviews, news and reviews, like our debut
issue, in which you'll meet David B. Silva, editor of The Horror
Show and author of Come Thirteen, up close and personal in a
brand new interview. Then, read "Fury's Child," Silva's latest
chilling masterpiece. Plus, there's Steve Rasnic Tern's "The
Double," Bentley Little's "The Janitor," and 9 more modern clas-
sics of the supernatural! Place your order today because they're
going fast, and they're sure to become collector's items!

But wait, there's more! After you've devoured our debut
issue, you'll want to watch your mailbox for our special All-Pro
Issue, featuring 8 new stories by your favorite best-selling au-
thors! All this, and you'll also receive a free issue of Nb News, the
official New blood Magazine subscriber newsletter, when you
subscribe to Cemetery Dance.

Cemetery Dance, P.O. Box 189, Riverdale, MD 20737 - Please make check or m.o. payable to Richard Chizmar only

I want to subscribe to CD for;-

□ One Year - 3 Issues - Only $11.00 □ Two Years - 6 Issues - Only $20.00 □ A Single Issue - $4.00

Name

Address City State Zip

♦

TWILIGHT ZONE 15

1988 PARAMOUNT PICTURES CORP

SCREEN

GAHAN WILSON

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

hristmastime was just a little
brighter and jollier for us last
year, since one of the season's
big moneymakers, Scrooged
(Paramount), came from our special
area of the macabre-fantastic That
kind of success is always nice to see
(even if, sometimes, the particular block-
buster isn't) because it means that
Hollywood's Men in Suits (who like
nothing better than a successful prece-
dent) will be encouraged to loosen up
with the cash flow a little for new films
in the same genre. I'll bet you as much
as five dollars that even as I write this,
and even as you read it (which is an
odd but true sort of simultaneity, when
you come to think on it), there are at
least a dozen new Christmas fantasy
films in various stages of production,
and that as many as four of them will
be released for our edification in the

next Yuletide season. So you'd better
watch out.

Carol for Another Christmas

Scrooged is decidedly uneven, but at its
high points it has a fine, raunchy per-
versity that definitely added to my holi-
day cheer. The script, by Mitch Glazer
and Michael O'Donoghue, gets in some
nice nasty digs at various worthy tar-
gets, and Richard Donner's direction is
generally unabashed, free-wheeling,
and suited to the outrageous situations
and visions he's been given to present.

The basic intent of the film is to
relocate Dickens's beloved sentimental
masterpiece to our present era. The no-
tion is such an apt one that if you take
the time to pause and give it the honest
eye-to-eye examination it deserves, I
think you'll find it will startle the hell
out of you and set you off along ex-

lAAiNb i rip: ScroogecT s Bill Murray rides into his checkered present witl
cabbie David Johansen.

tremely illuminating lines of thought. I
know it did that for me.

We have, in our time, accomplished
a kind of sociological miracle that I, as
a babe, essentially indoctrinated and
shaped by the fearless Roosevelt, and as
a grown man set further in those ways
by the boldly visionary Kennedy,
would have thought impossible.

Thanks to the extraordinary com-
bination of Reaganism and AIDS, we
have successfully managed a return to
the essential tenets of the Victorian era,
to its morbid repressions and universal
cruelties. (The total out-of-the-blueness
of things certainly does make a mock-
ery of the possibility of accurate
prediction, does it not?) Some of us
hope we have allowed ourselves to be
dragged kicking and screaming only a
little way back — but others appear to
be delighted with the turn of events and
have dived with wholehearted enthusi-
asm into this return to the past.

All of it has, interestingly, produced
a much more colorful society. Once
again we have flocks of entertainingly
bizarre beggars in our streets (together
with their attendant workhouses).
Once again we have the flamboyant,
desperately dramatic (and totally out of
control) street criminals to prey on us
and give us diverting tabloid reading,
just as Jack the Ripper did. (And we
also have a return of the obscene pri-
sons of those times.) Worst of all, we
once again feel free to scorn and ignore
the sufferings of everyone who is not in
our special group, and we can even find
it in our hearts to blame them for their
misery. I have done it myself. I shall
probably do it again.

Perhaps the greatest personal reve-
lation I gleaned from Scrooged is that I
have all this time been laboring under
the naive notion that social progress
was a fact, not a belief. I thought it was
some final state that had been achieved
and, thanks to such visionaries as

16 TWILIGHT ZONE

Roosevelt and Kennedy, we would have
it always. It was something accom-
plished, something done. Now I know
better, but it took the collapse of a
world to teach me. Dickens would feel
quite at home in (and doubtless be just
as pissed off with) this new/old society
of ours.

Okay, so all that aside, the initial
challenge the creators of Scrooged set
themselves was to figure out a contem-
porary vocation loathesome enough to
be appropriate to the title character.
What occupation in today's society
would be sufficiently vile, base, and
dishonorable to provide enough scope
for the misdeeds of anyone as actively
villainous as Scrooge7 Of course! A
network television president! And what
would be his main preoccupation when
we come upon him (aside from destroy-
ing anyone or anything that might get
in the way of bigger ratings and/or the
advancement of his career)? Why, to
produce a Christmas television special,
to be sure!

Bill Murray plays the modern ver-
sion of Dickens's antihero with dedicat-
ed, dead-eyed enthusiasm. His Scrooge
is all executive ambition, all executive
paranoia; hip-deep in constant, merci-
less calculations. You can almost see
the moral blinders flopping on the sides
of his head.

And his Chirstmas special — ah,
what a special it is! Everything you've
come to dread in such a production is
here: all the terrible casting, all the
hideous, life-draining cliches, all the
beastliness and cruddiness and total
dumbness you've come to expect in such
a special. But there are little surprise
touches: A confused-looking Buddy
Hackett cast as Scrooge. An irascible
John Houseman cast as the friendly,
wise old reader declaiming sonorously
from the big red Christmassy book on
his lap. There are also the obligatory
leggy Las Vegas dancers as carolers,
and all sorts of other stuff to take the
television viewers further and further
away from the loving spirit of the sea-
son and into peevish crankiness as they
watch.

Of course the essential conflict of
the original A Christmas Carol was the
constant moral contest going on between
Scrooge and the Christmas Spirits. They
did not hesitate to show the old repro-
bate terrifying visions; they never con-
cealed their disapproval of his selfish
ways, but the underlying flavor of their
arguments was one of reasoned, almost
gentle persuasion. In Scrooged, on the
other hand, the Spirits take their gloves
entirely off, escalating the combative-

CONTINUED ON PAGE 92

SUGAR PLUM SCAREY: Delightfully dangerous Christmas sprite Carol Kane
gets laughs while going for the eyes.

DEAD MEN DO WEAR ARGYLE: Murray’s decidedly decomposing partner
(John Forsythe) needs a good stiff drink.

TWILIGHT ZONE 17

1988 PARAMOUNT PICTURES CORP

ILLUSTRATIONS BY PETER R. EMSHWILLER

THE MIND’S

A Special Report
on the Audio Fiction Experience

ou walk into a bookstore feverishly searching for the new book by
your favorite author, say Stephen King or Arthur C. Clarke. You run
to the bestseller rack and -Oh, no! It isn't there! You'll have to wait
another week, you think, wishing these publishers would get on the
ball. But then something on a nearby rack catches your eye.

It has the author's name on it, along with the title you heard
about. But it isn't a book. It's a couple of audio cassettes in a box. You pause.
You're used to savoring this writer's words in print. How will it feel to hear
him read the stuff? You're not sure, but man-oh-man you need those cassettes
because you've loved everything he's ever written. You buy the tapes. And you
listen. And you realize this audio thing is very different from reading a book.

Of course there isn't anything all that new about hearing fiction read
aloud. Your parents probably read you bedtime stories, or maybe as a kid you
told your friends ghost stories. Maybe you've even heard "The Shadow" or
some of the other great old radio plays. But now that a lot of people can afford
personal stereos, more and more publishers are hoping you will want to hear a
piece of fiction as much as you want to read it.

Several publishers are producing more audio tapes than they ever have
before -not just for folks who have trouble reading, but for all of us who like
stories. This means that audio fiction is changing and growing. It is moving
away from the utilitarian and becoming its own art form.

We thought it was about time we gave you our view of this developing medium
by offering you a selection of what's available on tape, as well as presenting
you with an intimate taste of our personal experiences. We want you to know
how it feels to hear a great horror or science fiction story on audio.

So come with us now into an alternate dimension of sound, where the
doorway to the imagination is the mind's ear. . . .

18 TWILIGHT ZONE

TERROR
IN THE
DARK

What happens when you
close your eyes...?

by Jillian Smith

HERE ARE YOU, ALONE IN THIS DARK
place without landmarks, with-
out the safety of visual cues?
And what is that noise, that
approaching sound? What is waiting
out there to touch you?

I would like to take you on a trip,
a trip into horror. First, well look for it
in a place you've found it before — inside
the flickering dimness of a movie theater.
Then, well go into the deeper darkness
you can only find with the mind's ear. I
think youll discover something about
yourself there; something you may
have suspected, but never admitted.

So come with me. Sit down, relax,
and don't resist.

The Viewing Experience

Your eyes are open, wide open, as you
sit in the theater absorbing the images
flashing in front of you. People are be-
ing killed. You become uneasy as you
witness their deaths, but you never see
the killer. She is going to die, that
woman on the screen; you do not
know when, but you sense it's coming
soon. You watch the fear on her face,
her mouth moist and wantonly gaping,
a mouth that moments ago was dressed
in the most composed smile. Oh, God,
it's coming. You can feel it. Yes, there it

is, the killer!

No, wait! That latex, rigid thing
edged in neon blue can't be the fear-
some creature that's been ravaging doz-
ens of people. It's all wrong. As you
watch, your fear evaporates, while the
woman on the screen, the woman whose
fear you shared, continues to squirm
and gape and look ridiculous. Suddenly
you're wishing it would kill her and get
it over with; she's making a fool of
herself.

The horror experience has failed.
The story is over and the house lights
creep on; people are leaving and you
have readjusted completely to yourself.
Maybe if they had let you make the
film, (close your eyes) the image of the
killer would have been unbearable; the
audience would have gone mad. But
no. There would always be something
missing. If you can see something in
sharp, brilliant focus; if you know what
it is, how much can it really scare you?
The movie screen doesn't leave enough
room for the creatures of your imagi-
nation to writhe. So follow me again.
Into the dark.

A

HIS DARK POWERFUL
IMAGINATION -
ND HIS SKILL MAKE
THE HORROR GRISLY
AND EFFECTIVE'
PENTHOUSE

TH

I

READ BY THE AUTHOR.

BESTSELLING AUTHOR
OF WEAVE WOR LD

The Listening Experience

Close your eyes.

It's just you, alone, in the dark-

TWILIGHT ZONE 19

TERROR

ness. Your mind is the screen and your
imagination is the projectionist. Here
no one can tell you what to see. No
one can stop you from creating. You
can't even stop yourself. (Slip in the
tape. Dare to press the button.) A few
bars of music begin to play, preparing
you for the voyage, easing you in slow-
ly, gently. The story begins. (Keep your
eyes closed.)

At first you're feeling removed, as
if it's not your story, your experience.
You wait to be swept along, passive and
powerless, just like when you were in
the movie theater. Soon enough, though,
it begins: Sounds and voices flash im-
ages on the screen in your mind. There's

After listening to the audio horror
tapes night upon night, in the rare quiet
of the city, the darkness of early morn-
ing, I've noticed my manner has changed.
I've become more nervous than usual.
When I finished listening to one of the
tapes, I would sit for a few minutes try-
ing to regain my balance, trying to shake
the horror from my mind. I searched
for that period of readjustment that
comes so easily after a movie ends. I
wanted the credits to roll, to reassure
me that the people were only actors, as
I recalled my place in society, my name.
It didn't happen. No credits, no reassur-
ance. I was like a child, repeating over
and over, "It was only a story." It was

you will feel quietly unsettled. The calm
way in which the voice tells tales of
twisted minds -the sort that delight in
murder and mutilation — is seriously dis-
turbing. That unique blend of terror
and class has made Poe the master of
eloquent horror.

Poe is not the only sophisticate
available on audio cassette. You can
sample Bram Stoker's Dracula, Robert
Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Ambrose
Bierce's The Damned Thing, or W.W.
Jacobs's The Monkey's Paw. The Mon-
key's Paw is a story that dug its claws
deep into my imagination when I was
young. As a matter of fact, it was first

one character you're particularly identi-
fying with. S/he even resembles you.

The two of you are both feeling
fear; sweat is slowly crawling down
your face. What is it you are afraid of?
(The tape plays on.) What character
have you become in your imagination?
You must be the one cowering in the
darkness, in the false security of the
corner. (You can stop the tape if you
want, but you won't.) Trembling, you
wait, one with the victim, for what you
knew all along was going to happen.

But something is already happen-
ing to you, here in the dark. You are
not the victim, are you? That expres-
sion on your face is not the fright of an
innocent person. No, you have become
something you never dreamed. You are
the killer. An unspeakable passion oozes
through you. You have allowed it to
spill through your body, because you
are alone, because it's dark.

All you wanted was a little taste,
just a taste of the other side of fear.
Sleeping in you all this time was this
desire, and no one knew. You never
knew, until you were left alone with the
blackness. Now you know the secret.
No one needs to show you what horror
looks like; you are the horror.

Warning: These tapes May
Cause Some Minor Side Effects

You see what I'm saying. The new wave
of audio horror has rediscovered a se-
cret that the radio age knew all too
well. Terror that comes in the dark isn't
safe. It creeps up from deep inside you,
uses your own imagination to make itself
real.

as if the tape wasn't over, as if it con-
tinued to play in some mechanism im-
planted in my head.

At first I thought it couldn't be the
tapes, yet I find I spend my days in ap-
prehension and my nights in a struggle
to sleep. I see every color of the night
sky as it changes by the hour, until fi-
nally it becomes light and I can admit
that sleep has escaped me once again.

I'm hoping it will wear away with
time. I'm hoping I can convince myself
it wasn't me; I wasn't the one on the
tape. But it hasn't happened yet. A part
of me is still there, with the horror, lost
in the heart of the darkness.

Truly Disturbing Horror

If you want to join me here in the dark,
it's easy to begin. There's a large selec-
tion of truly disturbing horror available
on tape these days, so you should have
no problem finding a starting point.

The stories are presented in two
basic ways: narration and dramatiza-
tion. Narration is like a bedtime story,
with one person reading all parts of the
tale. Dramatization, like a play, has
only dialogue, with different actors play-
ing each part.

For sheer, classic terror, there's no
better place to start than Edgar Allan
Poe. Plenty of Poe can be found on au-
dio cassette from a variety of distribu-
ters. Poe sounds wonderful when he's
read aloud, most often by a single, dis-
tinguished male voice. You will find the
readings create a sense of isolation that
allows your imagination to romp around
and create as much as it wants. As that
stately, theatrical voice tells the tale.

told to me as a ghost story. I've never
read it and I've never forgotten it.

For those of you who are new to
it, it's a tale of a couple who get their
hands on a trinket with the power to
grant three wishes. Devastated by the
death of their son, the couple ask an un-
speakable favor of the paw, and in
turn, receive an unspeakable result.
Without resorting to graphic gore, The
Monkey's Paw works on your imagina-
tion, making you conjure the horror on
the other side of the door. It is the sort
of tale that can haunt you for years.

Books on Tape offers an unedited
version of Mary Shelley's classic
Frankenstein, and Spoken Arts, an
abridged one. I listened to the Spoken
Arts version and was completely enve-
loped as actors read the parts of those
unforgettable characters. Since I am so
fond of the novel, I expected to be dis-
appointed in the reading, but I loved
every minute of this classic story of a
scientist who dares to play God by
creating a man out of spare parts. I
strongly recommend this tape, especial-
ly to those who have never read the
novel; it is a far stranger story than the
one you know from the movies.

More recent "classics" can be found
on tape, too. Robert Bloch's Psycho is
available from Listening Library. The
short novel that Hitchcock interpreted
so well is stunning in its original form.
Certainly, Janet Leigh will flash through
your mind when the infamous shower
scene plays. But I should warn you,
there are a few things about Norman
Bates that Hitchcock didn't show us ... .

George Romero's Night of the Liv-

CONTINUED ON PAGE 95

20 TWILIGHT ZONE

SKIFFY
ON THE
SUBWAY

Listening to the Music
of the Spheres —

by Margaret Mayo
McGlynn

L ike horror audio, sf on tape
can take you into another di-
mension of sound. But horror
fiction draws you into a disturb-
ing universe. Science fiction, or sci-fi,
or "skiffy" (a term used by sf hipsters)
— even at its most dystopian — tends to
act like a spaceship or time machine,
flying you away from the uncomforta-
ble aspects of everyday life.

As a kid, I relished sf's out-of-real-
ity experience. I used to shut the door
of my bedroom, flop down on my four-
poster bed, open a book and jump glee-
fully into a different world. In later
years, I realized that science fiction had
not merely offered me a momentary
escape from a not-so-blissful childhood.
It had taught me to see life in a new
way— a way analogous to when an art-
ist steps back from a painting to get a
better sense of the whole composition.
When I began listening to some of my
favorite stories on tape, I was hoping
audio as a medium would be able to
preserve — and perhaps even enhance—
all of science fiction's unique qualities.

As I pulled out my headphones
and tape player for my first listen to an
sf story, I wondered why the genre need-
ed to be translated into audio. Shouldn't
reading the words on the page be enough?
But I plunged into the tapes, summon-

ing up my critical faculties.

When I criticize anything, I am of
two minds— or personas. The first is
the slightly curmudgeonly aesthetic
purist I learned to be sometime in high
school. The second is the media mani-
ac, the TV generation kid— about twelve
years old, crying towel in hand, eyes
perpetually glued to some kind of glow-
ing screen, scarfing down popcorn by the
bucket. These two tend to have little
family squabbles inside my head, but
sometimes they agree. And I trust both
of them to help me make judgments.

I usually listened to the audio tapes
while riding the R train from Manhat-
tan to my apartment in Queens. Both
sides of me love music, and I've found
my headphones do a good job of trans-
porting my mind away from that evil
underground. Reading science fiction is
also a good ticket out of those screech-
ing grottoes of hell. Therefore I figured
that a "subway stress test" would work
for science fiction on audio. After listen-
ing to a batch of tapes while shunting
back and forth from Queens, I realized
the environment gave the TV kid in my
head the upper hand on a number of
occasions. When I get cranky, she's at
the peak of her power. (And who
doesn't get cranky down there?) But
even the pickiest intellectual purist will
CONTINUED ON PAGE 95

TWILIGHT ZONE 21

"TEAM TZ":
Story
Editor Joe
Straczynski;
Casting
Director
Mary Ann
Barton; and
Executive
Producer
Marc
Shelmerdine.

22 TWILIGHT ZONE

RETURN OF
THE ZONE

PART FIVE

First, the news.

The very last installment of the new, syndicated Twilight
Zone, Harlan Ellison's "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich," entered
production on December 12, 1988, one year, two months,
and eleven days after I was first hired to story-edit the show.

We had wanted to end production with our least complicated
episodes. But, naturally, we finished with the most complex.
"Soup" required over one hundred camera setups (nearly
thirty percent over the average), and the most elaborate ef-
fects of any of the episodes.

(Harlan is still astonished by this. “It's just a simple little
story" he said to me the other day. I think I will have that
engraved on my headstone.)

"Soup" is directed by Paul Lynch, and stars Anthony
Fransciosa in the role of Nino Ventura, a suave underworld
type who has an unusual encounter with someone who hails
from an even deeper Underworld. Final casting announce-
ments have also been made for the other shows which have
been completed. Janet Leigh stars in "Rendezvous in a Dark
Place," a story about a lonely woman's flirtation with death,
and what happens when she's rejected even by him, written
by J. Michael Straczynski, and directed by Rene Bonniere.
Pamela Bellwood stars in "Cat and Mouse," a story about an
oversexed werecat with one of the nastiest, sharpest endings
I've ever seen, written by Christy Marx, and directed by Eric
Till. David Naughton (of An American Werewolf in London)
stars in "Special Service," a comic episode about paranoia
that asks the question, "What do you do when you find out
they really are watching you?" written by J. Michael Strac-
zynski, and directed by Randy Bradshaw. Ben Murphy plays
the lead in "Love is Blind," about one man’s decision to kill his
wife, and the outside interference that affects his plan, writ-
ten by Cal Willingham and directed by Gilbert Shilton.

There's one other piece of news that has been withheld
up until now, and this notice in Twilight Zone Magazine
marks the first time any mention has been made of it,
anywhere.

One afternoon, a package arrived at the TZ3 offices
from a source that must remain, for the time being, unidenti-
fied. I had been told to expect the package, but to keep its
existence secret until its contents had been examined, and a
determination had been made as to their disposition.

What I discovered within were four unproduced scripts
left over from the original Twilight Zone. There was "Pattern
for Doomsday" and "Who Am 17," both ghost-written by Jerry
Sohl for Charles Beaumont (the note on both cover pages,
signed by Sohl, reads, "Written by Jerry Sohl for Charles
Beaumont in an agreement centered on his increasing diffi-
culties in writing because of Alzheimer's disease, which he
did not then know he had; the work was done to aid Chuck
and his family.")

Then there was "What the Devil!" by Arch Oboler, dated ^

In Which the Author
Speculates on
Things Long Hidden
(Whether They Wanted
to Be or Not)

article by

J. Michael Straczynski

Copyright © 1989, Synthetic Worlds, Ltd.

PHOTOS BY J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI

TWILIGHT ZONE 23

RETURN OF THE ZONE

June 11, 1963, and "Many, Many Monkeys," written by William
Froug, dated January 20, 1964. My task: to review them and
determine which, if any, we could produce for TZ3.

We picked "Many, Many Monkeys." It was a chilling story
about the consequences of our continued inhumanity, our
decision not to see the problems and pains that afflict our fel-
lows. In that respect, the story was as timely now as when it
was first written. Only minor revisions were required to
bring it up to date in other respects. It was technical stuff,
mainly. One of the plot complications is attributed to an
atomic test in the atmosphere, something which isn't done
anymore, and even if it were done, we know now that the
radiation wouldn't have the effects necessary for the story.
An accident at a biological warfare plant was substituted.

Directed by Richard Bugajski, "Many, Many Monkeys"
stars Karen Valentine as the nurse who becomes involved in
the resulting plague in an intriguing manner. . .a plot
description also applicable to the script as it was written
twenty-five years ago for the original Twilight Zone. It was
a nice way to end the writing season, further confirming our
commitment to meld the old TZ with the new.

What goes around. . .comes around.

More than you'd ever suspect.

Private Triumphs, Public Disappointments

As the Constant Reader has probably guessed by now, a lot
of people invested tremendou* amounts of time, and effort,
and blood, and dreams in trying to bring The Twilight Zone
back from that silent place TV shows go when they are can-
celed. To the extent that we succeeded, we are gratified, and
couldn't have asked for better.

But one aspect remains to sadden us all. (Actually,
"sadden" is an understatement, but I'm trying desperately
here to retain some degree of journalistic objectivity.)

Very often, when I tell people that I'm working on the
new Twilight Zone, the usual response is, "Oh, I didn't know
that was back on." And that is the heart of the one problem
that has afflicted TZ3 since its release— a problem that many
of you may have noticed by now.

After all the effort to produce the shows, there was vir-
tually no follow-up to promote the series. In point of fact,
about two weeks before the show hit the air— after constant
complaints from our office to MGM/UA that there had been
no ads, no articles, no attempt to contact magazines, no men-
tion in the trades, no mention in the many articles summing
up the new sf/fantasy series (USA Today missed us three
times running, mentioning every other syndicated series from
Friday the 13th to War of the Worlds) . . . after all that, we
learned that there was virtually no money allocated to pro-
mote TZ3, and that the few P.R. people at MGM/UA who
had been slotted to handle the show had been terminated.

Two weeks to air, we had been orphaned.

There's this syndrome I call the Trap Door Complex. It
comes to the accompaniment of thunder and blood pounding
in your ears. It is that terrible, glacier-like feeling that chills
you to the bone as you hang up the phone and realize that
you have been cut off at the knees. A sense of weightlessness
as the trap door opens beneath you and you fall, and you
know there's not a damned thing you can do about it.

The TZ3 trap door opened when we heard that news,
and we all fell through it. Good intentions, hard effort, scripts
and cast and crew. ..all of it. Because it wouldn't matter
how well we had done our jobs if no one knew we existed.

We shifted gears as quickly as possible. In the midst of
editing the last few episodes, I requisitioned all the P.R.
material to be sent to my office. I then began a one-man

publicity campaign. Phone calls were placed and letters sent
to newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations. On several
occasions I found myself giving a phone interview while
simultaneously editing a script. If it had not been for the
support of the TZ3 West Coast crew, including Suzy Eliot,
our peripatetic secretrary/bringer of cheer/raider of my
chocolate vault, I think I would have gone mad. As it was,
outbursts were confined to occasional crazed memos, exem-
plified by the following, sent to my producer and— well,
someone else:

To: Rod Serling, Address Unknown

From: J. Michael Straczynski
Date: 20 September 1938
Re: Publicity, and Your Show

Dear Mr. Serling,

It may come as some surprise to you that we have re-
vived your series for yet a third incarnation. We regret the
delay in your discovery, but for what it’s worth, it appears
that virtually no one knows about the new show. I know this
may be difficult to believe— after all, The Twilight Zone is
one of the most easily marketable names in the history of
American television— but it is quite true.

We’ve learned of late that we fall under the umbrella of
MGM/UA HPP (Hidden Program Project). The idea of this
program, as near as we can determine, is to keep the Ameri-
can public utterly and completely in the dark concerning
the existence of any programs under that heading. Calls from
press eager to provide coverage and interviews are not
returned, no attempt is made to foster a relationship with
magazines (especially with TV Guide, that focus for all evil
in the world), and responsibility is circulated around so that
no one is really sure who should be spoken to about what.

You’ll note the attached clipping [from USA Today], in
which every other syndicated series on the planet is men-
tioned— except the new Twilight Zone. This is at least the
third article with this sort of glaring omission. We are very
pleased to see that MGM’s HPP is working away overtime,
keeping us from being associated with the product of other
studios not as fortunate in having their own HPP.

We’re reasonably sure that the HPP is similar to the
U.S. Forestry’s “Let It Burn” program, which has given a
new and far more streamlined look to Yellowstone National
Park.

This may seem a curious way to do business, but we’re
assured that this is truly the best way. And we support it
wholeheartedly. There is, after all, rio real challenge in mar-
keting something as instantly recognizable as The Twilight
Zone. Even a hydrocephalic infant could get us coverage in,
say, TV Guide or The Los Angeles Times or any of a hun-
dred other newspapers. And if there’s no challenge, there’s
no point in trying. This is an admirable, a courageous
stance, and we’re mightily impressed. We hope that those
handling the P.R. on this show can eventually find some-
thing up to their abilities— perhaps; helping market Ausch-
witz as a health spa ....

That the show has done as well as it has, without the
benefit of a decent publicity campaign, is the best testimony
to the response to our efforts that one could ask for.

Such is life.

So it goes.

Selah.

Present Tense, Future Imperfect

From the day Tappan King commissioned these articles, I
conceived of them as letters written to an unseen friend, as
honest and as personal as I could make them. And now that
I come at last to the end of this report from inside the third

CONTINUED ON PAGE 87

24 TWILIGHT ZONE

RETURN OF THE ZONE

4jgta

Atlantis Films head Seaton McLain, aka "The Man
from Atlantis."

Sue Phillips, production coordinator for Atlantis
Films' Toronto studios.

TWILIGHT ZONE 25

FICTION BY JOHN VA R L E Y

JUST RNOTHER
PERFECT
DRV

ILLUSTRATION BY
PETER SCANLON

Don't Worry.

Everything is under control.

I know how you're feeling. You
wake up alone in a strange room, you
get up, you look around, you soon dis-
cover that both doors are locked from
the outside. It's enough to unsettle any-
body, especially when you try and try
and try to recall how you got here and
you just can't do it.

But beyond that . . . there's this feel-
ing. I know you're feeling it right now.
I know a lot of things — and I'll reveal
them all as we go along.

One of the things I know is this:

If you will sit down, put this mes-
sage back on the table where you found
it, and take slow, deep breaths while
counting to one hundred, you'll feel a
lot better.

I promise you will.

Do that now.

See what I mean? You do feel a lot
better.

That feeling won't last for long. I'm
sorry to say.

I wish there was an easier way to
do this, but there isn't, and believe me,
many ways have been tried. So here we
go:

This is not 1986.

You are not twenty-five years old.

The date is

January February March April May June

man i 4 la tt 12

ip oa ?nns

£vw awr Lt\J\JO

A lot of things have happened in

twenty twenty one twenty-two

years, and I'll tell you all you need to
know about that in good time. ►

When things seem
darkest, you may wish
you could wake up
tomorrow with a new
life-a clean slate. But
what kind of price
would you have to pay!

TWILIGHT ZONE 27

PERFECT DRV

This morning you woke
up and couldn’t remem-
ber anything after the
summer of '86. But the
year is 2008, and we’re
beginning to think a
pattern is established.

For now. . .Don't Worry.

Slow, deep breaths. Close your
eyes. Count to a hundred.

You'll feel better.

I promise.

If you'll get up now, you'll find that
the bathroom door will open. There's a
mirror in there. Take a look in it, get to
know the

forty five forty -s ix forty-seven

-year- old who will be in there, looking
back at you. . .

And Don't Worry.

Take deep breaths, and so forth.

I'll tell you more when you get
back.

Well.

I know how rough that was. I know
you're trembling. I know you're feeling
confusion, fear, anger. . .a thousand
emotions.

And I know you have a thousand
questions. They will all be answered,
every one of them, at the proper time.

Here are some ground rules.

I will never lie to you. You can't
imagine how much care and anguish
has gone into the composition of this
letter. For now, you must take my word
that things will be revealed to you in
the most useful order, and in the easiest
way that can be devised. You must ap-
preciate that not all your questions can
be answered at once. It may be harder
for you to accept that some questions
cannot be answered at all until a prop-
er background has been prepared. These
answers would mean nothing to you at
this point.

You would like someone — anyone
— to be with you right now, so you
could ask these questions. That has
been tried, and the results were need-
lessly chaotic and confusing. Trust me;
this is the best way.

And why should you trust me? For
a very good reason.

I am you. You wrote — in a manner
of speaking — every word in this letter,
to help yourself through this agonizing
moment.

Deep breaths, please.

Stay seated; it helps a little.

And Don't Worry.

So now we're past bombshell #2. There
are more to come, but they will be easi-
er to take, simply because your capaci-
ty to be surprised is just about at its
peak right now. A certain numbness will
set in. You should be thankful for that.

And now, back to your questions.

Top of the list: What happened?

Briefly (and it must be brief — more
on that later):

In 1989 you had an accident. It in-
volved a motorcycle which you don't
remember owning because you didn't
buy it until 1988, and a city bus. You
had a difference of opinion concerning
the right of way, and the bus won.

Feel your scalp with your finger-
tips. Don't be queasy; it healed long
ago — as much as it's going to. Under
those great knots of scar tissue are the
useless results of the labors of the best
neurosurgeons in the country. In the
end, they just had to scoop out a lot of
gray matter and close you back up,
shaking their heads sagely and opining
that you would probably feel right at
home under glass on a salad bar.

But you fooled them. You woke
up, and there v/as much rejoicing, even
though you couldn't remember anything
after the summer of '86. You were con-
scious a few hours, long enough for the
doctors to determine that your intelli-
gence didn't seem to be impaired. You
could talk, read, speak, see, hear. Then
you went back to sleep.

The next day you woke up, and
couldn't remember anything after the
summer of '86. No one was too wor-
ried. They told you again what had
happened. You were awake most of the
day, and again you fell asleep.

The next day you woke up, and
couldn't remember anything after the
summer of '86. Some consternation was
expressed.

The next day you woke up, and
couldn't remember anything after the
summer of '86. Professorial heads were
scratched, seven-syllable Latin words in-
toned, and deep mumbles were mumbled.

The next day you woke up, and
couldn't remember anything after the
summer of '86.

And the next day

And the next day

And the day after that.

This morning you woke up and
couldn't remember anything after the
summer of '86, and I know this is get-
ting old, but I had to make the point in
this way, because it is

2006 2002 2008

and we've begun to think a pattern is
established.

No, no, don't breathe deeply, don't
count to one hundred, face this one
head on. It'll be good for you.

Back under control?

I knew you could do it.

What you have is called Progres-

28 TWILIGHT ZONE

sive Narco-Catalepti-Amnesiac Syn-
drome (PNCAS, or "Pinkus" in conver-
sation), and you should be proud of
yourself, because they made up the
term to describe your condition and at
least a half-dozen papers have been
written proving it can't happen. What
seems to happen, in spite of the papers,
is that you store and retrieve memories
just fine as long as you have a continu-
ous thread of consciousness. But the
sleep center somehow activates an erase
mechanism in your head, so that all
you experienced during the day is lost
to you when you wake up again. The
old memories are intact and vivid; the
new ones are ephemeral, like they were
recorded on a continuous tape loop.

Most amnesias of this type behave
rather differently. Retrograde amnesia
is seen fairly frequently, whereby you
gradually lose even the old memories
and become as an infant. And progres-
sive amnesias are not unknown, but
those poor people can't remember what
happened to them as little as five min-
utes ago. Try to imagine what life would
be like in those circumstances before
you start crying in your beer.

Yeah, great, I hear you whine. And
what's so great about this ?

Well, nothing, at first glance. I'll
certainly be the last one to argue about

that. My own re-awakening is too fresh
in my mind, having happened only fif-
teen hours ago. And, in a sense, I will
soon be dead, snatched back from this
mayfly existence by the greedy arms of
Morpheus. When I sleep tonight, most
of what I feel to be me will vanish. I
will awake, an older and less wise man,
to confusion, will read this letter, will
breathe deeply, count to one hundred,
stare into the mirror at a stranger. I will
be you.

And yet, now, as I scan rapidly
through this letter for the second time
today (I said I wrote it, but only in a
sense; it was written by a thousand
mayflies), they are asking me if there is
anything I wish to change. If I want a
change, Marian will see that it is made.
Is there anything I would like to do
differently tomorrow? Is there something
I want to tell you, my successor in this
body, to beware of, to disbelieve? Are
there any warnings I would issue?

The answer is no.

I will let this letter stand, in its en-
tirety.

There are things still for you to
learn that will convince you, against all
common sense, that you have a won-
derful life /day ahead of you.

But you need a rest. You need time
to think.

Do this for me. Go back to the
date. Mark out the last number and
write ij the next. If it's a new month,
change that, too.

Now you will find the other door
will open. Please go into the next room,
where you will find breakfast, and an
envelope containing the next part of
this letter.

Don't open it yet. Eat your breakfast.

Think it over.

But don't take too long. Your time is
short, and you won't want to waste it.

That was refreshing, wasn't it?

It shouldn't surprise you that all
your favorite breakfast foods were on
the table. You eat the same meal every
morning, and never get tired of it.

And I'm sorry if that statement
took some of the pleasure out of the
meal, but it is necessary for me to keep
reminding you of your circumstances, to
prevent a cycle of denial getting started.

Here is the thing you must bear in
mind.

Today is the rest of your life.

Because that life will be so short, it
is essential that you waste none of it. In
this letter I have sometimes stated the
obvious, written out conclusions you
have already reached — in a sense, wast-
ed your time. Each time it was done —

TWILIGHT ZONE 29

PERFECT DRV

Now about the Martians.
You are their fair-haired
boy. Why? Because you
don’t experience time
like the rest of humanity
does. The Martians spend
time with people like
you. We think they want
to teach us something.

and each time it will yet be done in the
rest of this letter — was for a purpose.
Points must be driven home, sometimes
brutally, sometimes repetitiously. I prom-
ise you this sort of thing will be kept to
an absolute minimum.

So here comes a few paragraphs
that might be a waste of time, but really
aren't, as they dispose neatly of several
thousand of the most burning questions
in your mind. The questions can be
summed up as "What has happened in
twenty years?"

The answer is: You don't care.

You can't afford to care. Even a
brief synopsis of recent events would
take hours to read, and would be the
sheerest foolishness. You don't care
who the President is. The price of gaso-
line doesn't concern you, nor does the
victor in the '98 World Series. Why
learn this trivia when you would only
have to re-learn it tomorrow?

You don't care which books and
movies are currently popular. You have
read your last book, seen your last movie.

Luckily, you are an orphan with no
siblings or other close relatives. (It is
lucky; think about it.) The girl you were
going with at the time of your accident
has forgotten all about you— and you
don't care, because you didn't love her.

There are things that have hap-
pened which you need to know about;
I'll speak of them very soon.

In the meantime ....

How do you like the room? Not at
all like a hospital, is it? Comfortable
and pleasant— yet it has no windows,
and the only other door was locked
when you tried it.

Try it again. It will open now.

And remember. . .

Don't Worry.

Don't Worry. Don't Worry. Don't
Worry.

You will have stopped crying by
now. I know you desperately need some-
one to talk to, a human face to look
into. You will have that very soon now,
but for another few minutes I still must
reach out to you from your recent past.

Incidentally, the reason the breath-
ing exercises and the counting are so ef-
fective is a post-hypnotic suggestion left
in your mind. When you see the words
Don't Worry, it relaxes you. It seems
that some part of your mind retains
shadows of memory that you can't reach
— which may also account for why you
believe all this apparent rubbish.

Are the tears dry? It did the same
thing to me. Even seeing my own face
aged in the mirror didn't affect me like
seeing the view from my windows.

Then it became real.

You are on one of the top floors of
the Chrysler Building. Your view to the
north included many, many buildings
that were not there in 1986, and jum-
bled among them were many familiar
buildings, distinctive as fingerprints.
This is New York, and it is a new cen-
tury, and that view is impossible to
deny and as real as a fist. That's why
you wept.

Not too many more bombshells to
go now. But the next one is a doozy.
Let's creep up on it, shall we?

You've already looked at the three
photographs on the table beside your
breakfast. Consider them now, in order.

The big, bluff, hearty-looking fel-
low is Ian MacIntyre, whom you'll meet
in a few minutes. He will be your coun-
selor/companion today, and he is the head
of a very important project in which you
are involved. It's impossible not to like
him, though you, like me, will try to
resist at first. But he is too wise to push
it, and you've always liked people, any-
way. Besides, he has a lot of experience
in winning your friendship, having done
so every day for eight years.

On to the second picture.

Looks almost human, doesn't he? If
the offspring of Gumby and E.T. could
be considered human. He is humanoid:
two eyes, nose, mouth, two arms and
two legs, and that goofy grin. The green
skin you'll get used to quickly enough.

What he is, is a Martian.

See, fifteen years ago the Martians
landed and took over the planet Earth.
We still don't know what they plan to
do with it, but some of the theories are
not good news for Homo sapiens.

Don't Worry.

Take a few deep breaths. Ill wait.

That last thought is unworthy of you
and unjust. I would not waste your
time with a practical joke. You must
realize I can back up what I say.

To illustrate, I want you to go to
the south windows of your apartment.
Go through the billiard room into the
spa, turn left at the gym, and open the
door beside the Picasso, the one that
didn't open before. You'll find yourself
in an area with a view of the Narrows,
and I'm sure I won't need to direct you
beyond that.

Take a look, and come right back.

All right, you just had to prove you
could do things your own way, didn't
you? I don't care that you brought the
letter with you, but your having done
so provides one last bit of proof that I
know you pretty well, doesn't it?

30 TWILIGHT ZONE

Now, back to the bloody Martians.

It's amazing how on-target Steve
Spielberg was, isn't it? The way that
ship floats out there, .and it's bigger
than the mother ship in Close Encoun-
ters. That sucker is over thirty miles
across. At its lowest point it is two
miles in the air. The upper parts reach
into space. It has floated out there for
fifteen years and not budged one inch.
People call it The Saucer. There are fif-
teen others just like it, hovering near
other major cities.

And you think you have detected a
flaw, don't you? How would you have
seen it, you ask, if it had been a cloudy
day? If it had been just a normal New
York smoggy day, for that matter. Then
you'd be reading this, scratching your
head, wondering what the hell I'm talk-
ing about.

The answer will illustrate every-
one's concern. There are no more
cloudy days in New York. The Martians
don't seem to like rain, so they don't let
it happen here. As for the smog. . .they
told us to stop it, and we did. Wouldn't
you, with that thing floating out there?

About the name, Martians. . .

We first detected their ships in the
neighborhood of Mars. I know you'd
have found it easier to swallow, in a
perverse way, had I told you they came
from Alpha Centauri or the Andromeda

Galaxy or the planet Tralfamadore. But
people got to calling them Martians be-
cause that's what they were called on
television.

We don't think they're really from
Mars.

We don't know where they're
from, but it's probably not from around
here. And , by that, I mean not just an-
other galaxy, but another universe. We
think our own universe exists sort of as
a shadow of them.

This will be hard to explain. Take
it slowly.

Do you remember Flatland, and
Mr. A Square? He lived in a two-dimen-
sional universe. There was no up or
down, just right and left, forward and
backward. He could not conceive the
notion of up or down. Mr. Square was
visited by a three-dimensional being, a
sphere, who drifted down through the
world of Flatland. Square perceived the
sphere as a circle that gradually grew,
and then shrank. All he could see at
any one moment was a cross-section of
the sphere, while the sphere, god-like,
could look down into Mr. Square's world,
even touch inside Square's body with-
out going through the skin.

It was all just an interesting intellec-
tual exercise, until the Martians arrived.
Now we think they're like the sphere,
and we are Mr. Square. They live in

another dimension, and they don't per-
ceive time and space like we do.

An example:

Ydfa saw they appeared humanoid.
We don't think they really are.

We think they simply allow us to
see a portion of their bodies which they
project into our three-dimensional world
and cause to appear humanoid. Their
real shape must be vastly complex.

Consider your hand. If you thrust
your fingers into Flatland, Mr. Square
would see four circles and not imagine
them to be connected. Putting your hand
in further, he would see the circles
merge into an oblong. Or an even bet-
ter analogy is the shadow-play. By suit-
ably entwining your two hands in front
of a light, you can cast a shadow on a
wall that resembles a bird, or a bull, or
an elephant, or even a man. What we
see of the Martians is no more real
than a Kermit the Frog hand puppet.

The ship is the same way. We see
merely a three-dimensional cross-sec-
tion of a much larger and more com-
plex structure.

At least we think so.

Communication with the Martians
is very frustrating, nearly impossible.
They are so foreign to us. They never
tell us anything that makes sense, never
say the same thing twice. We assume it
would make sense if we could think the

TWILIGHT ZONE 31

%

IT

PERFECT DRV

Let us speak of love for
a moment. Let me tell
you, Marian is in love
with you, and before the
day is over, you will be in
love with her. For you, it’s
always the first time. . . .

way they do.

And it is important.

They are very powerful. Weather
control is just a parlor trick. When they
invaded, they invaded all at once— and
I hope I can explain this to you, as I'm
far from sure I understand it myself,
after a full day with Martians.

They invaded fifteen years ago. . .
but they also invaded in 1854, and in
1520, and several other times in the
"past." The past seems to be merely an-
other direction to them, like up or down.
You'll be shown books, old books, with
woodcuts and drawings and contempo-
rary accounts of how the Martians ar-
rived, what they did, when they left . . .
and don't be concerned that you don't
remember these momentous events from
your high school history class, because
no one else does, either.

Do you begin to understand? It
seems that, from the moment they ar-
rived here, in the late part of the twen-
tieth century, they changed the past so
that they had already arrived several
times before. We have the history books
to prove that they did. The fact that no
one remembers these stories being in the
history books before they arrived this
time must be seen as an object lesson.
One assumes they could have changed
our memories of events as easily as the
events themselves. That they did not do
so means they meant us to be im-
pressed. Had they changed both the
events and our memories of them, no
one would be the wiser; we would all
assume history had always been that
way, because that's the way we remem-
bered it.

The whole idea of history books
must be a tremendous joke to them,
since they don't experience time con-
secutively.

Had enough? There's more.

They can do more than add things
to our history. They can take things
away. Things like the World Trade Cen-
ter. That's right, go look for it. It's not
out there, and we didn't tear it down. It
never existed in this world, except in
our memories. It's like a big, shared
illusion.

Other things have turned up miss-
ing as well. Things such as Knoxville,
Tennessee; Lake Huron; the Presidency
of William McKinley; the Presbyterian
Church; the rhinoceros (including the
fossil record of its ancestors); Jack the
Ripper (and all the literary works written
about him); the letter Q; and Ecuador.

Presbyterians still remember their
faith and have built new churches to re-
place the ones that were never built.
Who needed the goddamn rhino,anyway?

Another man served McKinley's term
(and was also assassinated). Seeing
book after book where "kw" replaces
"q" is only amusing — and very kweer.
But the people of Knoxville— and a doz-
en other towns around the world — never
existed. They are still trying to sort out
the real estate around where Lake Huron
used to be. And you can search the
world's atlases in vain for any sight of
Ecuador.

The best wisdom is that the Martians
could do even more, if they wanted to.
Such as wiping out the element oxygen,
the charge on the electron, or, of
course, the planet Earth.

They invaded, and they won quite
easily.

And their weapon is very much
like an editor's blue pencil. Rather than
destroy our world, they re-write it.

So WHAT DOES ALL THIS HAVE TO DO WITH
me, I hear you cry.

Why couldn't I have lived out my
one day on Earth without worrying
about this?

Well. . .who do you think is paying
for this fabulous apartment?

The grateful taxpayers, that's who.
You didn't think you'd get original
Picassos on the walls if you were noth-
ing more than a brain-damaged geek,
did you?

And why are the taxpayers grateful?

Because anything that keeps the
Martians happy, keeps the taxpayers
happy. The Martians scare hell out of
everyone . . . and you are their fair-
haired boy.

Why?

Because you don't experience time
like the rest of humanity does.

You start fresh every day. You
haven't had fifteen years to think about
the Martians, you haven't developed
any prejudice toward them or their way
of thinking.

Maybe.

Most of that could be bullshit. We
don't know if prejudice has anything to
do with it . . .but you do see time differ-
ently. The fact is, the best mathemati-
cians and physicists in the world have
tried to deal with the Martians, and the
Martians aren't interested. Every day
they come to talk to you.

Most days, nothing is accomplished.
They spend an hour, then go wherever
it is they go, in whatever manner they
do it. One day out of a hundred, you
get an insight. Everything I've told you
so far is the result of those insights be-
ing compiled —

— along with the work of others.
There are a few hundred of you, around

32 TWILIGHT ZONE

the world. No other man or woman
has your peculiar affliction; all are
what most people would call mentally
limited. There are the progressive am-
nesiacs I mentioned earlier. There are
people with split-brain disorders, peo-
ple with almost unbelievable perceptual
aberrations, such as the woman who has
lost the concept of "right." Left is the only
direction that exists in her brain.

The Martians spend time with these
people, people like you.

So we tentatively conclude this
about the Martians:

They want to teach us something.

It is painfully obvious they could
have destroyed us any time they wished
to do so. They have enslaved us, in the
sense that we are pathetically eager to
do anything we even suspect they might
want us to do. But they don't seem to
want to do anything with us. They've
made no move to breed us for meat ani-
mals, conscript us into slave labor camps,
or rape women. They have simply ar-
rived, demonstrated their powers, and
started talking to people like you.

No one knows if we can learn what
they are trying to teach us. But it be-
hooves us to try, wouldn't you think?

Again, you say: Why me?

Or even more to the point: Why
should I care?

I know your bitterness, and I un-
derstand it. Why should you spend even
an hour of your precious time on prob-
lems you don't really care about, when
it would be much easier and more satis-
fying spending your sixteen hours of
awareness gnawing on yourself, wal-
lowing in self-pity, and in general being
a one-man soap opera.

There are two reasons.

One: You were never that kind of
person. You've just about exhausted
your store of self-pity during the pro-
cess of reading this letter. If you have
only one day— though it hurts like hell
... so be it! You will spend that day do-
ing something useful.

Reason number two. . .

You've been looking at the third
picture off and on since you first picked
it up, haven't you? (Come on, you can't
lie to me.)

She's very pretty, isn't she?

And that thought is unworthy of
you, since you know where this letter is
coming from. She would not be offered
to you as a bribe. The project managers
know you well enough to avoid offer-
ing you a piece of ass to get your
cooperation.

Her name is Marian.

Let us speak of love for a moment.

You were in love once before. You
remember how it was, if you'll allow
yourself. You remember the pain . . . but
that came later, didn't it? When she re-
jected you. Do you remember what it
felt like the day you fell in love ? Think
back, you can get it.

The simple fact is, it's why the
world spins. Just the possibility of love
has kept you going in the three years
since Karen.

Well, let me tell you. Marian is in
love with you, and before the day is
over, you will be in love with her. You
can believe that or not, as you choose,
but I, at the end of my life here this
day, can take as one of my few consola-
tions that I /you will have, tomorrow/
today, the exquisite pleasure of falling
in love with Marian.

I envy you, you skeptical bastard.

And since it's just you and me. I'll add
this. Even with a girl you don't love,
"the first time" is always pretty damn
interesting, isn't it?

For you, it's always the first time . . .
except when it's the second time, just
before you sleep. . .which Marian seems
to be suggesting this very moment.

As USUAL, I HAVE ANTICIPATED ALL YOUR
objections.

You think it might be tough for
her? You think she's suffering?

Okay. Admitted, the first few hours
are what you might call repetitive for
her. You gotta figure she's bored, by

now, at your invariant behavior when
you first wake up. But it is a cross she
bears willingly for the pleasure of your
company during the rest of the day.

She is a healthy, energetic girl, one
who is aware that no woman ever had
such an attentive, energetic lover. She
loves a man who is endlessly fascinated
by her, body and soul, who sees her
with new eyes each and every day.

She loves your perpetual enthusiasm,
your renewable infatuation.

There isn't time to fall out of love.

Anything more I could say would
be wasting your time, and believe me,
when you see what today is going to be
like, you'd hate me for it.

We could wish things were differ-
ent. It is not fair that we have only one
day. I, who am at the end of it, can feel
the pain you only sense. I have my
wonderful memories. . which will soon
be gone. And I have Marian, for a few
more minutes.

But I swear to you, I feel like an
old, old man who has lived a full life,
who has no regrets for anything he ever
did, who accomplished something in his
life, who loved, and was loved in
return.

Can many "normal" people die say-
ing that?

In just a few seconds that one, last
locked door will open, and your new
life and future love will come through
it. 1 guarantee it will be interesting.

I love you, and I now leave you . . .

Have a nice day. ■

TWILIGHT ZONE 33

a

rw

In life she had given
him a priceless seed of
inspiration* Now she
was about to give him
the most precious gift
of all ... .

W

A TZ FIRST BY

DAN BENNETT

ILLUSTRATION BY ROGER De MUTH

"Nothing's ever gone, child," Maggie
was saying. I stood in the front room of
the tiny old public library, sobbing,
nine years old and confronted for the
first time with death. Uncle Warren —
my favorite uncle, the one who had
taught me to spit and to fish on his
farm in South Carolina— was dead.

My mother was broken up, and
my father was busy making the funeral
arrangements. But the library had al-
ways felt like home.

"Close your eyes, honey." Maggie's
big, dark arms reached out to me, and
I leaned gratefully into them. "Think of
your old uncle, Stevie. Are your eyes
closed? You see him there?"

I did, and the pain and fear began
to fade.

"You've still got him, Stevie. He's
still there. Nobody's ever really gone,
child. Life goes on."

I believed her.

That was twenty years ago.

I REMEMBER THE SMELL OF GRASS THICK
with early-morning dampness and —
even from back where I stood with
Anita and Rod — the smell of the grave,
of mildew and red Georgia clay.

The old woman's family stood
nearer the coffin, huddled together
against the chill under a canopy of dark
green canvas.

Just like when I was a boy, I felt
out of place among these people, even
Rod and Anita. There was something I
didn't understand — I couldn't grasp the
faith they had, none of them crying,
just clutching their Bibles to their hearts
as if they could wring out of the books
some comfort.

Ashes to ashes, the preacher said.
Dust to dust, and the big oak box
began to vanish, slowly sinking into a
dark hole in the earth.

And Maggie was gone.

I stood with Rod and Anita, none
of us saying a word, as the other
mourners drifted away. Finally alone in
the cemetery, we walked in quiet uni-
son to the edge of the grave. We stood
silent there for a minute, maybe two —
but in our minds, I know, two decades
passed.

"Thanks for calling me. Rod." I
said, and Anita said, "Yeah. Me, too."

"I figured you'd both want to come ^

34 TWILIGHT ZONE

TWILIGHT ZONE 35

Maggie

There
between Asimov
and Bester were
six new ones,
written by a man
named Stephen
Barclay.

My books.

Maggie hadn’t
forgotten!

back out here for this." Rod scuffed his
feet in the grass, uneasy. "Just wish we
all could have gotten back together
under better circumstances."

"It's funny," I said, "We all must
have spent half our lives in that library.
Maggie looked old enough, even then.
Guess I thought she'd be around forever."

"She almost was," Rod said. "She
worked at the library right up until the
end. If she'd stuck around a little bit
longer, I could've taken Amy to see her."

'Amy?"

"My daughter. She's three. God,
Steve, it has been a long time, hasn't it?"

"I've got a kid, too," Anita said.
She brightened a bit, until I could al-
most see the little girl I'd known. 'An
eight-month-old boy. Named William
Reed, after my husband."

"How about you, Steve? Did you
ever take time off from your writing to
get married?"

"Yeah. Her name's Michelle. She's
terrific"

Rod grinned. "You have a kid?"

"No. No such luck." I caught my-
self staring into the grave, then looked
up and forced a smile. "We'd like to. We
really would."

"Listen," Rod said, breaking the
sudden tension. "I promised Maggie's
sister I'd go to the library and collect
some stuff for her— family pictures,
that kind of thing. Would — uh . . .
would you two like to go along and see
the old place again?"

"No," Anita said. "But I think I
have to." I knew how she felt.

I didn't go straight to the library. I
told Rod and Anita I'd meet them there,
then went back to my hotel room. No
messages yet, the desk clerk said, and I
had to remind myself that it was still
early morning in L.A.; still a couple of
hours before I would hear any word
from Michelle.

Unable to stall any longer, I head-
ed for the library.

The two-lane road curved easily,
never exposing what lay beyond the
next row of pine trees and dimly famil-
iar houses. It would have been easier to
find my way if I could have left behind
the rented Buick with its smells of plas-
tic and vinyl and become a boy again,
blanketed in the sweet smell of pines
and magnolias, pedaling my three-speed
Schwinn and listening to the Four Tops

on the little radio taped between the
handlebars.

I heard a loud clanging from up
ahead, then a long, high whistle. When
I reached the railroad crossing, the
gates were already down and a train
was rolling through.

I stopped there, watching the
brown and orange boxcars rattling past,
and everything fell into place as if some-
one had found a map of the old town
in a comer of my head and unfolded it
again.

Beyond the train, I knew, was
Mick's Country Store— a genuine slice
of small-town America, an Old-South
cliche brought to glorious life, with
wooden floors and a big glass pickle jar
on the counter.

My heartbeat quickened as I wait-
ed for the train to pass, and distantly I
thought I might stop in the old store
and get myself a Nehi Orange from the
big, steel cooler in the back. I could al-
most taste the drink, feel the ridged
glass bottle in my hands, when the last
boxcar passed, and —

— nothing.

I stared in disbelief at an empty
lot, overgrown with weeds and filled

36 TWILIGHT ZONE

with cast-off garbage - the red, rusted
husks of gutted cars and refrigerators
lay where Mick's had been. Across the
street stood a Seven-Eleven, bright and
shrill and gaudy, its huge iceboxes filled
with aluminum cans and bottles made
of plastic

Twenty years. They had seemed so
short to me.

I stepped on the gas, suddenly
needing to be away from the place. The
Buick bolted roughly across the rail-
road tracks and over the next hill.

And I saw the library.

There were already two cars in the
gravel lot when I turned the Buick up
the drive. Rod and Anita stood waiting
at the front door.

"It's closed," Anita said, and she
rattled the locked door to show me.
"No big surprise, I guess."

1 smiled. "Remember when we
were kids, and Maggie'd let us sneak
our books back a day late, on Sunday?
1 wonder if—"

Rod was on his knees before I fin-
ished speaking. He tugged at a loose
brick at the edge of the doorstep, and
when it came free, he stood up, holding
a little brass key. "Bingo! Way to go,

Steve." He unlocked the door and we
stepped inside.

The first thing that hit me was the
smell of aging paper and cloth— a
warm, inviting smell, almost a flavor;
not at all unpleasant.

I found the light switch, turned it
on, but some shadows remained; many
of the old, wavy-glass windows had
been replaced with duct tape and
cardboard.

We crossed the uneven wooden
floor into the main room, following a
well-worn path. In the corners sat pie
plates filled with the previous night's
rain, filtered though cracks in the
ceiling.

The library was firmly rooted in
the past, but one shelf had always been
filled with futures. Out of habit, I went
there first, finding the titles that had
become the strongest memories of my
childhood: Dune, Childhood's End,
Fahrenheit 451, Foundation ... all the
books I had read and re-read as a child
—and there between Asimov and Bester
were six new ones, written by a man
named Stephen Barclay.

My books. Maggie hadn't for-
gotten.

"Steve! Anita! Take a look at this."
Rod stood behind the main desk, look-
ing through the brittle pages of a huge,
old leather-bound book.

"It was in the drawer here. I
couldn't resist . . . just look at it." Rod
turned the big book so we all could see
it. "It's some kind of scrapbook. Look,
there's a picture of you, Steve. Nine
years old. And this is the article from
the Herald, when you won that college
writing contest. What's this other stuff?"

I leaned in for a close look.
"Um . . . that's an interview from
Writer's Digest. These are book
reviews. Oh, God — that's the first story
I ever sold, from Galaxy. Not a bad
one, come to think of it. And this—"

The last item stopped me cold. It
was a library card, with one title and a
date circled in red.

"Between Planets" I read. "July 20,
1962. That's the first science fiction
book I ever read. Maggie—"

"Maggie picked it out for you," Rod
said. 'Ask me how I knew that."

"How7"

"Look." Rod turned to two more of
the oversized pages. One began with a
picture of Rod as a boy, the other with
a photo of a young Anita.

Rod's page was filled with little
clippings, each one announcing the
construction of a new building some-
where in the South. There was a big ar-
ticle from the Herald, "Local man

makes good," about the awards Rod had
won for his design of an art gallery in
Memphis. The library card at the bot-
tom of the page read "Buildings and
Bridges, August 11, 1958."

Anita's page told a similar story—
Maggie had loaned her a biography of
Elizabeth Blackwell in 1964. The central
item on the page was a program from
Anita's graduation from Johns Hopkins;
it was surrounded by several papers
Anita had published in medical
journals.

"Lord," Anita whispered. "I, uh. . .1
don't guess it could be a coincidence,
could it?"

"Three times might be a coinci-
dence," Rod said, "But not this." He
turned page after page, each one reveal-
ing another young face and another fu-
ture. There were at least thirty of
them, maybe forty, spread out over
decades.

"God," Anita said. "She knew. She
really, really knew."

"Now wait a minute, you two," I
said. "Slow down. How do we know
Maggie didn't put all this together just a
month ago? It's easy enough to make
predictions after the fact."

Rod barely let me finish speaking.
"Sure it is, Steve, but why in the world
would she hang on to all these library
cards and clippings? Some of this stuff
is twenty-five, thirty years old."

"I Relieve it." Anita seemed caught
between reverence and a sort of fear.
"Maybe it's just because I want to, but
I believe it."

"Yeah," Rod said. "Look at it this
way, Steve — if all this isn't for real,
maybe it ought to be."

I didn't argue the point. Instead, I
made a date to meet them both again
before I had to leave Atlanta, then walked
out of the library without another
word. At the time I thought I was an-
gry, although I couldn't have said why.

It wasn't until later that I realized
the truth: I was envious; I would have
given anything to believe it all.

There was a package waiting for me at
the desk when I got back to the hotel
that same afternoon. I thought at first
it must have been from Michelle, but
the return address was Maggie's. It was
postmarked two days before she died.

Inside it was a book: The Growing
Family.

Which would have meant very lit-
tle to me, if not for the phone call that
came only a minute later. It was
Michelle. The tests are positive.

We're having a baby.

Life goes on ... . I

TWILIGHT ZONE 37

A tale of

woman.

vegetable.
Morals Bo
carefull

in

di

A JZ FIRST RT

ONSIDER, FOR A MOMENT, THE LOWLY POTATO. A LUMPY,
grayish-brown root that has never enjoyed the romance so often associated
with vegetables. It's not gracefully tapered and brilliantly colored like the
carrot. Nor does it hold lonely housewives in thrall like the versatile cucum-
ber. It's just a humble, fleshy little tuber, nestled quietly in its bin, never
making so much as a peep. Like me, if you ever met a potato on the street
you probably wouldn't give it the time of day.

You can imagine my alarm when, while I was sitting in the main dining
room of the Hasenpfefer, my mashed potatoes spoke to me. The voice was a
little garbled because of the extra schnitzel gravy, but it was definitely the
potatoes talking.

"Pssst." I looked down at my plate and blinked my eyes, as if they were
causing some sort of audio hallucination.

"Yeah, Runtboy, you. Listen a sec"

"Who is that?" I asked, prodding at the edge of the mound with my
fork.

"Yeah, it's me. Your potatoes. Knock it off with the fork for about half
a minute, will you?"

I set the fork down and looked toward the ladies' room. Suzy, my girl-
friend, had taken off for the powder room with a look of serious intent
about an hour before. God only knew what she did in there, but if I knew
my little Suzy she'd be back just in time tor order the single most expensive
dessert item on the menu. Sometimes she would order two, or even an entree
for dessert.

I glanced down at the potatoes and a moment of mutual understanding
passed between us. Better to finish this little chat before she returned.

"It's about Suzy," the spuds continued.

"Yeah, Suzy," I answered, transfixed.

"Hell of a girl. Nice keester. Frisky. I like her. I like her a lot." And for
a strange, blurred moment, the potatoes almost seemed to smile.

"I like her, too." I was still getting used to this, so I just tried to keep
the conversation going without upsetting the potatoes too much. Deep
down, in the pit of my stomach, I was beginning to suspect that would not
be a good idea.

"Then we agree — this Suzy is a keeper. An A-l, major piece of ord-
nance. Outstanding."

The potatoes had raised their voice for a second, and I looked around
the dining room, expecting to see a few turned heads. But no one else could
hear the potatoes. That's how it works in the movies. Warren Beatty comes
back with the body of a potato, and only Jack Warden can hear him. But
now I could hear all the potatoes iri the restaurant. Most of them were
screaming, of course, because they were being tom apart and eaten. Some
of the untouched potatoes were shouting subliminal messages at whoever ^

TWILIGHT ZONE 39

they were sitting in front of, trying to
put them off their lunch. "Salmonella I"
shouted a boiled potato sitting next to a
grilled salmon steak. "Roadkill!" hollered
the potato pancakes lying next to the
sauerbraten. Then the forks and knives
would descend, and the horrible screams
would begin. As I cupped my hands
over my ears, I heard the strangely se-
rene voice of my mashed potatoes.

"Look, Terry, relax. Those guys are
just hamming it up. We potatoes get re-
incarnated the instant we die. And the
great thing is, we always come back as
another type of potato. All I ask is that
when my time comes you finish me off
fast, so I can hurry back. One of these
times I'm gonna return as a bag of cajun-
flavored potato chips. God dammit, I
love this job!

"But listen, Terry, the thing is, I
wanted to tell you that I like Suzy, and
I think you should marry her."

"Marry her? Are you nuts?" I knew
this would upset him, but I couldn't
help myself. "She's my secretary, for
Chrissakes! Why should you give a shit
who I marry? I mean, Jesus, you're a
lousy plate of yams."

"I am not a yam," the potatoes
shouted with remarkable authority, and
for the first time in my life I feared a
side dish. "Don't you ever call me a
yam!

"Look, kid, listen. First of all, you're
not doing this for me alone. You're do-
ing it for the mass, collective conscious-
ness of all potato-kind. Second, I'm not
asking you. I'm telling you. You started
this whole thing last weekend when
you took Suzy to that sleazy motel and
started playing around with the instant
mashed potatoes you ordered from room
service. Kinky. Most people do that
sort of thing with whipped cream or
some such nonsense. You were the first
person to treat us potatoes so nice.
Now that we've got a taste of her, we
need you to keep our fantasy alive. Be
a sport, Runtman, she's all we've got."

The potatoes had a sick, smug look
to them, and suddenly I felt like some
poor high school schmuck who'd just
found out his girlfriend had taken on
the football team. I started to say some-
thing when I saw Suzy emerge from the
ladies' room. Suddenly the potatoes
stopped screaming. Then, quietly at
first, they started to hum the wedding
march — the hellish chant slowly build-
ing in pitch. And my mashed potatoes
were the loudest of them all. "Here
comes the bride! Here comes the bride!"

I grabbed the fork and went to work on
the potatoes in front of me. They had
asked for a quick death, but I just laid
the mound open with my fork and let

the gravy ooze out.

'AAAaaaaagh! You bastard! You'll
pay for this!" they shrieked. "I'll be
there. Ill be there every time you order
a bag of fries at McDonalds. Every time
you open a can of Pringles. No matter
where you turn, there'll be a potato,
and one of them will have your name
on it. You smug little shit. I'll bake in
hell with you . . . ack . . . aaaaaaaurgh!"
The last of the gravy had flooded my
plate, dripping onto the tablecloth. But
the other potatoes only sang louder,
their strange, lilting voices winding
higher and higher like the glee club at
an insane asylum. I had to make it stop
before it drove me mad. I turned to the
next table and hurled a couple of plates
of potatoes against the wall, cutting off
their voices with two sickening thuds.

"Can't you hear them?" I screamed,
overturning a potato-laden table. "Can’t
you even hear the potatoes in front of
you7" But now music was drowning out
my voice, and it wasn't the wedding
march; it was the theme from "The
Newlywed Game."

I turned to look at Suzy, who was
standing there in a white dress, and
suddenly it all fell together: She was
part of it. She was the one who started
playing "Cement Mixer" with the pota-
toes in the first place. She had won them
over to her side. And now they wanted
me to marry Suzy and live out their
twisted fantasies. I looked at Suzy and
imagined a life of expensive desserts
and rambling post-sexual chatter about
crystals. And then I lunged for her with
the salad fork. It was hard work, but
after a while the singing died out.

I LET THE PRISON CHAPLAIN COME TO HEAR

my confession today. I'm not a reli-
gious guy, but hey. I've seen some pret-
ty inexplicable things in my life, and
you want to cover all your bases when
you're about to go for a lounge on a
twenty-thousand-volt La-Z-Boy. So I
figured I'd oink a few sins to make the
guy feel good, and he could forgive me
for whatever crimes I'd committed
against his God, who— and I really
can't wait to see for myself if I'm right
on this — is probably an enormous,
omniscient Idaho baker.

As I shoved down my last forkful
of lobster, he came in, looked at my
plate, and offered to wait outside. "I
don't want to interrupt your last meal,"
he said.

"That's all right. Padre. I'm fin-
ished," I said.

The priest nodded toward my
leftovers almost reverently. 'Are you
sure? You haven't even touched your
potatoes." ■

CUTTING

TZ QUIZ by Margaret Mayo McGlynn

I n this issue's special section on screenwriter Charles Beaumont and his talented colleagues (beginning on page
42), we've offered you a little slice of Hollywood synergy from the years of the first Twilight Zone TV show.

We wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes look at the magic that can sometimes happen when talented people
collaborate and one great creative mind makes others catch fire. Beaumont was the kind of man who could act
as both mentor and muse.

Rod Serling also made a point of nurturing talent. And, as you probably know, many of the creative people who
worked on The Twilight Zone and Rod Serling's Night Gallery went on to make their own films and TV shows. So, in
keeping with this issue's theme we present this "Cutting Room" match-up quiz.

In recent quizzes, we've focused on the performers who brought TZ and Night Gallery to life. Here we give you the
opportunity to test your knowledge of the people working behind the cameras — writers, directors, and producers. Each
pair of titles listed to the left is the work of a single talent. The first title in each pair is a Twilight Zone or Night Gallery
episode; the second, another film or television project. See if you can link each pair with its appropriate writer, director,
or producer. But wait, there's more!

I've built into this quiz a "back door" for the visually minded (or the trivially handicapped, like me). See the weird-
looking strip next to the names at right? You can cut out the list and separate the names along the white lines. Those of
you who want to save the magazine intact (bless your hearts) can copy this page or trace it. If you can put the design in
order so that it spells out the answer to our final bonus question, you'll have the answers to the whole quiz. So go
ahead, grab your scissors, and prove you're a cut above the rest!

PROJECTS

1. "Nick of Time" (TZ)

The Queen of Outer Space (film)

2. "The Boy Who Predicted
Earthquakes" ( NG )

Blue Thunder (film)

3. "A Game of Pool" (TZ)

Wanted, Dead or Alive (TV series)

4. "Miniature" (TZ)

The Intruder (film)

5. "The Mirror" (TZ)

"The Arena" (TV episode for
Studio One )

6. "Logoda's Heads" (NG)

The House That Dripped Blood
(film)

7. "Cavender is Coming" (TZ)

Curse of the Cat People (film)

8. "From Agnes With Love" (TZ)
Scrooged (film)

9. "The Housekeeper" (NG)

Ice Station Zebra (film)

10. "The Little Black Bag" (NG)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
(film)

11. "Eyes" (NG)

Jaws (film)

12. "Midnight Never Ends" (NG)
Supergirl (film)

PEOPLE

A. Steven Speilberg, director

B. Richard Donner, director

C. Douglas Heyes, screen writer

D. Jeannot Szwarc, director

E. John Badham, director/producer

gr

F. George Clayton Johnson,

screenwriter

G. Joe Alves, art director

rn^mm MB

H. Buck Houghton, producer

I. Robert Bloch, screenwriter

J. Rod Serling, screenwriter

u

K. Charles Beaumont, screenwriter

"1

L. Richard Matheson, screenwriter

UL

BONUS QUESTION: Name this teleplay
about boardroom intrigue by a well-
known TZING writer and producer that
later became a feature film starring Van
Heflin and Everett Sloan.

ANSWERS ON
PAGE 98

CHARLES BEAUMONT

THE CARNINAL

ILLUSTRATION BY PETER CUNIS

For a young boy in a small town, a carnival has a special
kind of magic But for Lars Nielson, trapped in a lifeless
body, that magic will soon turn dark and strange ....

The cool October rain and the wind blowing the rain. The green and yellow
fields melting into gray hills, into gray sky and black clouds. And everywhere,
the smell of autumn drinking the coolness, the evening coolness gathering in
leaves and wheat and alfalfa, running down fat brown bark, whispering through
rich grass to tiny living things.

The cool rain, glistening on earth and on smooth cement.

"Come on, Lars, I'll beat you!"

"Like fun you will!"

Two boys with fresh wet faces and cold wet hands.

"Last one there is a sissy!"

Wild shouts through the stillness and scrambling onto bicycles. A furious
pedaling through sharp pinpoints of rain, one boy pulling ahead of the other,
straining up the shining cement, laughing and calling.

"Just try and catch me now, just try!"

“Ill catch you all right, you wait!"

"Last one there is a sissy, last one there is a sissy!"

?v

CARNIVAL

Faster now, flying past the crest of
the hill, faster down the hill and into
the blinding rain. Faster, small feet run-
ning, wheels spinning, along the smooth
level. Flying, past outdoor signs and
sleeping cows, faster, past strawberry
fields and haystacks, little excited blurs
of bams and houses and silos.

"Okay, I'm going to beat you. I'm
going to beat you!"

A thin voice lost in the wind.

"I'll get to the trestle 'way before
you, just watch!"

Lars Nielson pushed the pedals an-
grily and strained his young body for-
ward, gripping the handlebars and sing-
ing for more speed. He felt the rain
whipping through his hair and into his
ears and he screamed happily.

He closed his eyes and listened to
his voice, to the slashing wind and to
the wheels of his bicycle turning in the
wetness. Whizzing baseballs in his
head, swooping chicken hawks and
storm currents racing over beds of light
leaves.

He did not hear the small voice
crying to him, far in the distance.

"Who's the sissy, who'll be the
sissy?" Lars Nielson sang to the
whirling world beside him, and his legs
pushed harder and harder.

His eyes were closed, so he did not
see the face of the frightened man. His
ears were full, so he did not hear the
screams and the brakes and all the oth-
er terrible sounds. The sudden, strange,
unfamiliar sounds that were soft and
quiet as those in his mind were loud.

He pushed his young legs in the
black darkness, harder, faster, faster. . . .

The room was mostly blue. In the places
where it had not chipped and cracked,
the linoleum flo.or was a deep, quiet
blue. The walls, specially hand-patterned,
were a soft greenish blue. And the rows
of dishes on high display shelves, the
paint on the cane rockers, the tablecloth.
Mother's dress. Father's tie — all blue.

"The Carnival" was left unpublished at
the time of Beaumont's death. It was to
have been included in his fourth collec-
tion, A Touch of the Creature. The
book was scheduled for release in
1964, but, after lengthy negotiations.
Bantam Books dropped it in late 1963.
"The Carnival," in addition to a num-
ber of other previously unpublished
stories, has been included in the recent
collection Charles Beaumont: Selected
Stories, edited by Roger Anker (Dark
Harvest Press. P.O. Box 941, Arlington
Heights, IL 60006).

Even the smoke from father's pipe,
creeping and slithering up into the thick
air like long blue ghosts of long blue
snakes.

Lars sat quietly, watching the blue.

"Henrik." Mrs. Nielson stopped her
rocking.

"Yes, yes?"

"It is by now nine o'clock."

Mr. Nielson took a large gold
watch from his vest pocket.

"It is, you are right. Lars, it is nine
o'clock."

Lars nodded his head.

"So." Mr. Nielson rose from his
chair and stretched his arms. “It is time.
Say good night to your mama."

"Good night. Mama."

"Good night."

"So."

Mr. Nielson took the wooden bar
in his big hands and pushed the chair
gently past the doorway and down the
hall. With his foot he pushed the door
open and when they were inside the
bedroom, he pulled the string which
turned on the electric light.

He walked to the front of the chair.

'Tars, you feel all right now?
Nothing hurts?"

"No, Papa. Nothing hurts."

Mr. Nielson put his hands into his
pockets and sat on the sideboard of the
bed.

"Mama is worried."

"Mama shouldn't."

"She did not like for you to be
mean to the dog."

"I wasn't mean."

"You did not play with it. I
watched, you did not talk to the dog.
Boys should like dogs and Mama is
worried. Already she took it away."

Lars sat silently.

Tm sorry. Papa."

"It isn't right, my son, that you
should do nothing. For your sake I say
this."

"Papa, I'm tired."

"Three years, you do nothing. See,
look in the mirror, see at how pale you
are getting. Sick pale, no color."

Lars looked away from the mirror.

"I tell you over and over, you must
read or study or play games."

"Play games. Papa. . .?"

Mr. Nielson began to pace about
the room.

"Sure, certainly. Games. You can,
you can make them up. Play them in
your head. You don't have to run
around and wave your arms to play
games!"

Lars looked down, where the car-
pet lay thin and unmoving.

"But you do nothing. All day I

“ Tomorrow is a
surprise , Lars.
Tomorrow you will
see happiness and
it will clear your
head; then you
will he a man! ”

work, and hard I work, lifting many
pounds, and I come home tired. All
day I use my arms and feet and back
and I do not want to any more, when I
come home, so I don't. I sit in the chair
and read. I read, Lars, and 1 smoke my
pipe and I talk with Mama. I sit still,
like you, but I do something!"

With Mr. Nielson's agitated move-
ment, the room started to pick at the
Feeling. Lars concentrated on white.

'And it don't take my arms and legs
to do it. They are tired, they are every
way like yours. I am you at night, Lars.
And I am old, but I don't sit with noth-
ing. I am always playing games, in my
head. I don't move, but I don't worry
Mama who loves me. I don't move, but
I don't say nothing to my mama and
papa, ever, just sit staring!"

"I'm sorry. Papa."

"Then begin to think, Lars. When I
come home at night, let me see you
talking to Mama, planning things with
your brain. The big men are big be-
cause of their brains, my son, not their
arms and legs. Nothing is wrong with
your brain, my son, you didn't hurt it.
You have time to leam, to learn
anything!"

"I will begin to think, Papa."

Mr. Nielson rubbed his hands to-
gether. They made a rough grating
sound.

44 TWILIGHT ZONE

'All right. Tomorrow you tell
Mama you are sorry and want to play
with the dog. She will get it back for
you, and you should smile and thank
her and talk to the dog."

"I— I can go to bed now?"

"Yes."

Mr. Nielson leaned forward and
slid one arm behind Lars's back, anoth-
er beneath his legs.

"We are not like others," he said
slowly. "When I am gone, there will be
nothing, no money. Don't you see why
you got to— are you ready?"

Mr. Nielson lifted Lars from the
wheelchair and laid him on the bed. He
sucked on his pipe as he removed shirt,
trousers, stockings, and shoes and un-
derwear; grunted slightly as he pulled a
faded tan nightgown over heavy lengths
of steel and rubber.

Then he smiled, broadly.

"You should say big prayers to-
night, my son. You have worried Mama,
but even so, tomorrow is a surprise."

Lars tried to lift his head. Father
stood near the bed, but in the comer,
so the big smiling face was hidden.

"Tomorrow, Papa?"

"I tell you nothing now. But you
are a young man now, nearly, and you
have promised me that you will begin
to think. Isn't that what you promised,
Lars?"

"Yes."

"So. And I believe you. No longer
coming home to see you sitting with no
thoughts. I believe you and so, tomor-
row you get your reward. Tomorrow
you will see happiness and it will clear
your head; then you will be a man!"

Lars stopped trying to move his
head. He closed his eyes so that he
would not have to stare at the electric
light bulb.

"Hah, but I don't tell you. Say big
prayers, my son. It is going to be good
for you from now on."

"I will say my prayers tonight.
Papa."

"Good night, now. You sleep."

"Tell Mama — that I'm sorry."

Mr. Nielson pulled the greasy
string and the room became black but
for the coals in his pipe.

Lars waited for the door to close
and Father's footsteps to stop. Then he
moved his lips, rapidly, quietly,
fashioning the prayer he had invented.
To a still, unmoving God, that he could
stay forever in the motionless room, to
fight the Feeling. That he could think of
colors and nothing and keep the Feeling
— the feet across meadows, the arms
trembling with heavy pitchforks full of
hay, all the parts of life — in a small cor-
ner in a far side of his mind.

Lars prayed, as Father had suggest-

ed. His head did not move when sleep
came at last.

"You DID NOT TELL HIM, HENRIK?" MRS.
Nielson rocked back and forth in the blue
cane chair, breaking green beans into
small pieces and throwing the pieces into
an enamel washbasin.

"No."

"He never went to one— there never
was one in Mt. Sinai since I can
remember."

"Once when I worked for the fruit
company it came here, but we were very
busy and I could not go."

"Henrik, do you think, will it really
be good for him?"

"Good? Mama, you do not know.
When I went to that one in Snohomish I
did not have job to work or money. I just
went to look and I didn't spend anything.
But there was all the people, everybody
in the town, and all laughing. Every-
body, laughing. And so much to see!"
Mr. Neilson began to chuckle. "Shows
and machines and good livestock like
you never saw. And funny, crazy peo-
ple in a tent. Oh, Mama, when I went
home I was happy, too. I didn't worry.
Right after, I got a job and met you!"

Mrs. Nielson slapped his knees.

"How many? Twenty years ago, but
see, see how I remember! Lars will be
no more like this when he sees all the
laughing. He will come home like I did.
But I didn't tell him. He don't know."

A 'cat scratched at the screen and
Mrs. Nielson rose to open the door. She
sniffed the air.

"Raining."

Mr. Nielson took up his newspaper.

"Henrik, he can't go on the rides."

"So? I went on no rides."

"What can he do?"

"Do? He can see all the people
laughing. And he can see the shows
and play with the dice—"

"No!"

"Mama, he is sixteen, almost a
man. He will play with the dice, he will
say, and I will throw them. And he will
see the frogs jump. And I will take him
to the tent with the funny people. The
brain, mama, the brain! That is what
enjoys the carnival, not arms and legs.
That is what will make Lars un-
derstand."

"Yes, Henrik. We must cheer him
up. Maybe after, we can bring him the
dog and he will play with it."

"Sure, certainly, he will. He will be
"happy, not alone in this house, feeling
sorry for himself."

"Yes."

"It will start him to think. He will
think about how to make for himself a

TWILIGHT ZONE 45

4 -

%

CARNIVAL

living, like anybody else. And he will
read books then, you'll see, and find-
out what he wants to do. With his
brain!"

Mrs. Nielson paused before
speaking.

"Henrik."

"Yes?"

"What can he do, like you say,
with his brain without arms and legs?"

"He has arms and legs!"

'As well not, as well no back, no
body."

"Hilda! He must do something,
something. Look at that blind woman
who can't hear, like we read in the
magazines — she did something. Can't
you see. Mama, can you not under-
stand? I would take care of Lars, even
if it is wrong. But you know the rail-
road will give only enough for you
when I die, and I am not young. We
married late. Mama, very late. If Lars
does nothing, how will he live7 Is it an
institution for our boy, a home for crip-
ples where he sees only cripples all day
long, no sunshine? No happiness? For
Lars? No! At the carnival tomorrow he
will see and begin to think. Maybe to
write, or teach or— something!"

"But he has not been from the
house, since—"

"More reason, more!"

Mrs. Nielson broke beans loudly.
Kindling crackled in the big cast-iron
stove.

"This blind woman you say about,
Henrik. She has feet to walk."

"Lars has eyes to see."

"This woman has hands to use."

“Lars has ears to hear, a brain to
think, a tongue to talk!"

The cat scratched sharp sounds
from the linoleum.

Mrs. Nielson rocked back and
forth.

"This woman has money and
friends. She never saw or heard, she
cannot remember."

Mr. Nielson went to the sink and
drew water from the faucet, into a
glass. He drank the water quickly.

"So, then Lars has a heavier cross
and a greater reward."

"Yes, Henrik."

"You will see. Mama, you will see.
After the carnival, he will know what
he wants to do. He will begin to think."

Mrs. Nielson rose and dusted the
bean fragments from her lap, into the
wash-basin. She picked up the cat and
went outside onto the porch. Then she
returned and snapped the lock in the
door.

"Maybe you are right, Henrik.
Maybe anyway he will like little dogs

and talk to me. I hope so, I hope so."

Mr. Nielson wiped his hands on
the sides of the chair and listened to the
rain.

Lars felt his body being pushed by strong
invisible hands, felt himself toppling
over like a woolen teddy bear onto
Father's shoulder. He bit his lip and
closed his eyes.

Mr. Nielson laughed, applying the
brake.

"There now, the turn too sharp,
eh, Lars? I will be more careful."

The car began to move again,
more slowly, jerking, rattling. Lars
looked out the windshield at the fields
and empty green meadows.

"Papa, is it far?"

"Hah, you are anxious! No, it is
not far. Maybe five miles, right over the
bridge."

"Will we have to stay long?"

Mr. Nielson frowned.

"I told Mama we would be back
before dark. Don't you want to go, af-
ter what I told you, after what you
said?"

Two children playing in a yard
went by slowly.

"Don't you want to go, Lars?"

"Yes, Papa. I want to."

"Good. You don't know. You never
saw anything like a carnival, never."

Lars closed his mouth and thought
of colors. The children touched his
mind and he thought of the blue dishes
in his home. He opened his eyes, saw
the pale road and thought of black
nothing. Wind came through the open
windows, tossing his brown hair and
clawing gently at his face and he thought
of the liquid green in a cat's eyes.

Mr. Nielson hummed notes from
an old song, increasing pressure on the
accelerator cautiously. Soon the road
became a white highway and other cars
went whistling by. Signboards ap-
peared, houses, roadside cafes, gasoline
stations and little wooden stands full of
ripe fruit.

And then, people. People walking
and leaning and playing ball and some
merely sitting. Everything, whirling by
now in tiny glimpses.

Lars tried to force his eyes shut,
but could not. He looked. He looked at
everything and pressed his tongue
against his teeth so the Feeling would
stay small in his mind. But the
meadows were yards now, and they
were no longer quiet. They moved like
everything in them moved.

And the people in the automobiles,
laughing and honking and resting their
elbows out the windows.

When he saw the girl on the bicy-
cle, Lars managed to pull his eyelids
down.

"Oh, such a beautiful day, Lars!
Everyone is going to the carnival. See
them!"

"Yes, Papa."

The car turned a comer.

"Different than all alone in a cold
room, eh, my son? But, see — there,
there it is! Oh, it's big, like when I
went. Look, Lars, this you have never
seen!"

Lars looked when his eyes had
stopped burning.

First, there were the cars. Thou-
sands and millions of cars parked in
lots and on the sides of the highway
and wherever there was room, in yards,
gasoline stations, the airfield. And then
there were the people. So many people,
more than there could be in the world!
Like ants on a hill, scrambling, walk-
ing, moving. Everywhere, cars and
people.

And beyond, the tents.

"Oh, Mama should have come, she
should have come. Such a sight!"

The old car moved like a giant lob-
ster, poking into holes that were too
small for it, pulling out from the holes,
seeking others, Finally, beneath a big
tree in a yard, stopping.

Mr. Nielson smiled, opened the
back door and pulled the wheelchair
from the half-seat. He lifted Lars and
put him in the chair and stood for a
moment breathing the air and tasting
the sounds.

"Just like before, only even better!
You will enjoy yourself!"

Lars tried to feel every rock be-
neath the wheels and every blade of
grass. He turned his eyes down as far as
he could, to see the earth, but he saw
his body. The sounds grew louder and
as he glided on the smoothness he be-
gan to see beyond the crawling, moving
people. It all grew louder and Father's
voice faster so Lars cut off the Feeling
and returned to the bottom of the
ocean.

The hard-rubber wheels turned
softly on nothingness. . . .

Heyheyheyhey how about you, Mister?
Try your luck, test your skill, only ten
cents for three balls. . . . Now I'll count
to five, ladies and gentlemen, and if one
of you picks the right shell, you win a
Kewpie Doll. . . . All right, sir, your
weight is one-fifty-three, am I right?. . . .
Right this way, folks, see the wonders
of the Deep, the dangerous shark and
Lulu the Octupus. . . . The Whirlagig,
guaranteed to scare the yell out of

46 TWILIGHT ZONE

The candy and the peanuts
and the little dirty faces. The
rides and the planes and the
exhibits and the penny
arcades. The stale, excited
odors and the screaming
voices. And the movement,
the jerking, zooming,
swooping, leaning, pushing,
running movement ....

you .... Fun, Thrills, and Excitement,
only twenty-five cents on the Flying
Saucer. . . . Fresh cotton candy. . . .
Spooktown, Spooktown, ghosts and
dragons and lots of fun, ten cents for
adults, a nickel for the kiddies. . . .
How about you. Mister?. . . .

Lars kept his eyes still, but the
Feeling was there. It was small at first
and he could think yet of colors and
beds that did not move. But it was
growing, in the shape of baseballs and
bicycles and gigantic leaps, it was
growing.

Mr. Nielson took his eyes from the
iron machine and turned the crank until
it clicked. The sign read Secrets of the
Harem and Mr. Nielson sighed.

He put the huge ball of pink vapor
to Lars's mouth and Lars put his tongue
about the gritty sweet.

'Ah, ah, ah. You are happy, I can
see, already! What shall we do now?
The fish, we will look at the fish!"

Peculiar gray creatures swimming
in dirty water in a big glass tank.

"Now you wait here for Papa."

Father stuffed into a small box and
the box falling fast down a thin track,
then up and later down again. Screams
and laughter and movement. Movement.

"Watch, you see, I'll break the
balloon!"

Pop! And a plaster doll covered
with silver dust and blue paint.

Inside for the thrill show of the
century, ladies and genetlemen, see Par-
mo the Strong Man lift ten times his
own weight. . . .

A man with a large stomach and
moving muscles, pulling a bar with a
black ball at either end, hoisting the
bar, holding it above his head. Laughs
and cheers.

Yahyahyahyah! See her now, folks,
the most gorgeous, the most beautiful,
the most (ahem!) shapely little lass this
side of Broadway, Egyptian Nellie, she's
got curves on her yahyahyahyah ....

"Lars, you wait— no, you don't. It
wouldn't be right."

The candy and the peanuts and the
little dirty faces. The rides and the
planes and the exhibits and the penny
arcades. The stale, excited odors and
the screaming voices. And the move-
ment, the jerking, zooming, swooping,
leaning, pushing, running movement.

Last one there is a sissy, last one
there is a sissy. . . .

"Good, good, good. Mama should
be here! But now we must eat."

An open arena, with fluffballs of
red and yellow and green hanging from
the ceiling. On the floor, popcorn and
peanut shells and wadded dirt.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 74

TWILIGHT ZONE 47

T he year is 1960. And if you
should wander into one of
Los Angeles's coffee shops
during the late hours of the
night, you just might see a group of
young men, chain-smoking and drinking
black coffee, talking animatedly into
the early hours of the morning about life
and their art. Chances are, they won't
notice you — or anyone else.

They might be working on a televi-
sion script, or a magazine essay, or dis-
cussing whether the girl in the short
story on the table before them would
really cry like that. One of them, the
slim young man with the sandy blond
hair, may be leaning over a white writ-
ing pad, his black bail-point pen mov-
ing across it with swift, dark strokes, as
the others watch him with total concen-
tration.

The man's name is Charles Beau-
mont. And this coffee shop is, in a very
real sense, a part of the Twilight Zone.

Beaumont, and the other writers
who gather here, including George
Clayton Johnson, William F. Nolan, John
Tomerlin, and Jerry Sohl, will soon
make a major contribution to The Twi-
light Zone's enduring magic, creating
such classic episodes as "Perchance to
Dream," "Nothing in the Dark," "Living
Doll," and "Number Twelve Looks Just

Like You." But the influence of these
late-night sessions extends far beyond
one television program.

Along with Richard Matheson,
Chad Oliver, Ray Russell, and the
group's early mentor, Ray Bradbury,
these writers are part of what Los An-
geles Times critic Robert Kirsch calls
"The Southern California School of
Writers"— a remarkable confluence of
talent that produced an astonishing
body of work in print and on screen.
Beaumont and his circle had a pro-
found effect on the development of fan-
tastic film and fiction in the decades
that followed.

Tall, lean, and bespectacled, Charles
Beaumont was always full of a thou-
sand ideas and a thousand projects,
and approached them all with fantastic
energy. By 1960, he was already an es-
tablished writer. He'd published dozens
of short stories and essays, and several
books, sold a number of screenplays to
such shows as Alfred Hitchcock
Presents, Naked City, Thriller, and
Wanted: Dead or Alive. And when Rod
Serling's Twilight Zone made its net-
work debut in 1959, Beaumont became
one of its principal writers, scripting
over twenty of its one hundred fifty-six
episodes. He was often so busy he
would enlist the help of his friends to

A LOOK BACK AT THE
BRILLIANT WRITER
WHO BROUGHT A
SPECIAL MAGIC TO
THE TWILIGHT ZONE
AND INSPIRED A
GENERATION OF
TALENTED YOUNG
SCREENWRITERS.

Special thanks are due to Christopher
Beaumont and William F. Nolan for the use
I of photographs from their collections in
I conjunction with this article.

RANKER

ARTICLE BY ROGE

TWILIGHT ZONE 49

IT

Beaumont

George Clayton Johnson:

BEING TAKEN TO THE BEACH

"We had this business we called 'being
taken to the beach.' It worked best
when there were about four of us. I
remember once, on the way back
from a road racing trip. Chuck and
Helen Beaumont, John and Wilma
Tomerlin, Bill Nolan and myself were
talking and we got into an analytical
mood where we were discussing
somebody's flaws. And Helen stopped
us at it and said that it was like being
taken to the beach for the purpose of
being drowned. After that we started
referring to it as 'being taken to the
beach.' You'd be warned: 'We're going
out. We've all decided we're taking
you to the beach, George.' And I'd
say, 'Yeah, okay. Fine.' And you'd
spend four or five hours driving up
and down the beach or through town
or wherever, while three guys told
you what was wrong with you. But
you have to understand, we weren't
setting out with an objective to
destroy; we were setting out with an
objective to heal.

"Around this time, I was having
some strong opinions about fiction
and television and what art was
about. And John Tomerlin was writ-
ing for the Lawman series and Beau-
mont was writing for Twilight Zone
and Have Cun, Will Travel and some
other shows, and I'd sold only a cou-
ple of short stories. So Chuck said,
It's all right for you to have all these
high-flown literary opinions about
what's good and what isn't and put us
down for being whores in the video
business, but then you've got to prove
that you can do it better, show us
what you're talking about here or we
can't take you seriously.'

"I went home and started writing
that night. Within a week or two, I
was selling 'A Penny for Ypur
Thoughts' to Twilight Zone. Nothing
would have galvanized me to do it,
except that Beaumont finally stopped
treating me as though I really were
wise and said, 'George, after all, you
haven't done it.' He softened it, but
ultimately it's: Hey, man, put your
money where your mouth is.' That
really proved to be the turning point
in my career."

complete the assignments.

So those late-night coffee shop
meetings were more than just social
gatherings. They were part business
meeting, part brainstorming session,
part writing workshop, and part group
therapy session.

"We were a group of young men
who were interested in talking to each
other," recalls George Clayton Johnson,
"in deep sincerity and emotionalism,
about God-knows-what: How to write
a story, how to get ahead, arguing the
merits of various racing drivers or com-
posers, arguing about an old movie,
telling each other our story ideas or
reading our stories out loud. And a lot
of it was just simple conversation."

In many ways, Charles Beaumont
was the group's focal point, its "electric
center."

"Chuck was like the hub of a wheel,"
explains William F. Nolan, one of Beau-
mont's earliest friends. "And you had all
these different spokes going out: Richard
Matheson, John Tomerlin, George Clay-
ton Johnson, Chad Oliver, Ray Russell,
Rod Serling, Frank Robinson, Harlan
Ellison, myself. Spokes. All connected
to Beaumont. He energized us. Fired us.
Made us stretch our creative and writ-
ing muscles. He was always encourag-
ing us to do better. It was a very
stimulating period in our lives."

Won Over by Writing
The man who would become known as
Charles Beaumont was bom Charles
Leroy Nutt in Chicago on January 2,
1929, and grew up on that city's North
Side. Of his early childhood, he wrote,
"Football, baseball, and dime-store
cookie thefts filled my early world, to
the exclusion of Aesop, the Brothers
Grimm, Dr. Doolittle, and even Bull-
finch. The installation by my parents of
library wallpaper' in the house ('A
room-full of books for only seventy cents
a yard!') convinced me that literature
was on the way out anyway, so I lived
in illiterate contentment until laid low
by spinal meningitis. This forced me to
less strenuous forms of entertainment. I
discovered Oz; then Burroughs; then
Poe — and the jig was up. Have been
reading ever since, feeling no pain."

An only child, young Charlie Nutt
was very sensitive about his name. He
once expressed to boyhood acquain-
tance Frank M. Robinson his hatred for
the continuous teasing he'd endured:
"The kids in school would ask 'Is your
father some kind of a nutT" He later
changed his name to McNutt, but when
that didn't satisfy the situation, he
changed it finally, legally, to Beaumont.

50 TWILIGHT ZONE

At age twelve, midway through his
two-year bout with meningitis, Beau-
mont's parents sent him to what they
considered to be a better climate. It was
not a normal living situation for a
young boy. "I lived with five widowed
aunts who ran a rooming house near a
train depot in, the state of Washington,"
he told the San Diego Union. "Each
night we had the ritual of gathering
around the stove and there I'd hear the
stories about the strange deaths of their
husbands." Beaumont's early illness,
and that long period of childhood isola-
tion, contributed to the macabre flavor
of his later work.

During this time, Beaumont also
published his own fan magazine, Uto-
pia, and soon became an avid fan of
science fiction, writing letters to almost
every magazine of the genre.

In an interview, Beaumont described
his early adulthood this way: "Studied
piano for six years, decided [I] couldn't
squeak by owing to immensely talented
right hand and nowhere left. Joined Army
before graduating high school, left
Army sadder, wiser. Took up art, illus-
trated magazines, did cartoons, decided
I was great faker but lousy artist, gave
it up. Tried acting, star ascended like
lead dirigible. Quit acting. Got mar-
ried. Attempted short story, sold it, did
another, got it rejected, did another —
finally found what I had been looking
for. Have been writing [ever since], no
intention of quitting."

A Passion for Words
In the summer of 1946, Beaumont met
twenty-six-year-old Ray Bradbury in a
Los Angeles book store and began talk-
ing about his comic collection. Out of
that beginning, a friendship blossomed.
Bradbury began to read Beaumont's
stories and quickly became a major in-
fluence. "When I read the first one, I
said, 'Yes. Very definitely. You are a
writer', " recalls Bradbury. "It showed
immediately. Chuck's talent was obvi-
ous from that very first story."

As Beaumont's early writing brought
him little more than rejection slips, he
worked at a number of odd jobs. While
working briefly as a railroad clerk in
Mobile, Alabama, Beaumont met Helen
Broun. They were married soon after-
ward, and their first child, Christopher
was bom in 1950.

It was while Beaumont was work-
ing as a tracing clerk for California
Motor Express that he met John Tomer-
lin. When the two discovered they
shared a passion for words (as well as a
skill for getting out of work), they
quickly cultivated what was to become

, : S % L# I

Group” in the early 1950s. Left to right:
Chad Oliver, Beaumont (with bottles), Richard
Matheson, and William F. Nolan .

a lifelong friendship.

In 1951, Beaumont made another
special friendship when he met the
young struggling writer Richard Mathe-
son. As their careers grew, the two act-
ed as spurs to one another. "He and
I — in a very nice way, of course— were
very competitive," says Matheson (who,
in addition to many screenplays, tele-

during the early Fifties, but meeting
with little success. Ray Bradbury
recalls: "I was at Universal in 1952 on
my very first screen project. It Came
From Outer Space, and Chuck, coin-
cidentally, was working there in the
music department, handling a multilith
machine, copying the musical scores. I
would see him and have lunch with

plays, and short stories, is known for him there at the studio and encourage
works such as I Am Legend and The him. Tlyse were hard years for him; he
Shrinking Man). 'At first, I was a little

ahead of him in sales. But he caught up
to me."

By the time The Twilight Zone

Robert Kirsch:

A CALIFORNIA OF THE MIND

debuted, Beaumont and Matheson had
firmly established themselves in both
television and prose, having produced a
prodigious and varied body of imagina-
tive, skillfully written and — perhaps
most important— experimental stories.
Yet, as close as Beaumont and Mathe-
son were as friends and writers, their
personalities could not have been more
different. Beaumont's stories often re-
flect his interests and concerns: speed
and racing, jazz and music, the dark
side of character, the bite of satire.
Says Matheson, "Our stories sort of
showed the way we lived and thought.
I stayed home a lot. I was a homebody
and I'm still a homebody. Fortunately,
the ideas that I've gotten were sort of
unusual. But then I would immediately
place them in a home situation. The
neighborhood situation. Whereas Chuck
would get these incredible ideas and
they could take place anywhere and in
any way. He was much more unlimited
in his thinking."

"When I speak of a Southern Califor-
nia school, I am referring to one
source of Beaumont's material," says
Robert Kirsch, the first major critic to
identify the importance of Beaumont
and his circle. "A writer, if he has
identity and authenticity, as Beaumont
does, is produced by the contrasting
interaction between a discernible envi-
ronment and the special, individual
vision which is his.

"This discernible area is Southern
California (of the mind even more
than geography): new, illusory, ex-
perimental, the land of sports cars
and movies, speed and special effects.
Above all it is the terrain of imagina-
tion where the writer does not have
the rooted, haunted past, it is the
present which provides his sustenance.

"Perhaps that is why the settled
East and the decaying South have not
produced the special quality of fanta-
sy which is Southern Californian."

Beaumont was writing feverishly

TWILIGHT ZONE 51

Beaumont

William F. Nolan: terror

IN THE PARKING LOT

"One night, after Beaumont and I had
gone to a late-night horror movie, we
came out of the Wiltern Theater and
walked across the street to get into my
car, which was in the parking lot of
one of the big stores on Wilshire.

"We were very hyped up, talking
about the horror film we'd just seen
and about other horrors — real-life
horrors. Chuck was just fascinated
with that kind of thing.

"When we got to the parking lot,
we found that one other car -in this
entire big lot — was parked right next
to mine. It was about two in the
morning. The other car had a figure
sitting in it, slumped against the
wheel, and kind of staring. The figure
was either dead or pretending to be
dead or was drunk or asleep or was
just waiting for somebody. We didn't
know what to make of it. Normally,
you would just walk up to your car,
quietly get in and drive away. That's
what normal people would do. Beau-
mont began to construct this thing as
we stood on the sidewalk, looking to-

ward the lot. 'Okay,' he said, and be-
gan to count with his fingers. 'The
man could be, one, a corpse. And if
he is a corpse, I don't want anything
to do with it. I don't know about you,
but I don't.' I said, 'No, no. I don't
want anything to do with a corpse.'
'Or, two, he's some kind of madman
pretending to be asleep and ready to
go for us the minute we get to that
door.' I said, 'Well, that's very unlike-
ly.' Unlikely, yes,' he said. 'But not im-
possible. Why would he park right
next to us? The only car in a lot that
can hold three hundred cars?' I said,
'That's a good point.' 'Maybe, the guy
is a normal man who's fallen asleep
waiting for his wife.' I said, 'That's
probably the case.' 'Exactly,' he said.
'But are you willing to risk your life
on that?' I said, 'No.' So we left the
car and took a bus home.

"It would start out tongue-in-
cheek, but Chuck had a compelling
ability to convince you of things. He
had that quiet way of simply laying
out this scenario that probably we'd
be fine — except that if we weren't we'd
be killed. It sounds strange, but you
just had to know Beaumont, and the
way he could lay these things out."

didn't want to be in the music depart-
ment doing all this 'stupid' work. He
wanted to write."

When he was fired from Universal
in June of 1953, Beaumont took the
plunge into full-time writing. He was
twenty-four, married, and had a family
to support. (They would have four chil-
dren in all, Chris, Catherine, Elizabeth,
and Gregory.)

By late 1953 the Beaumonts were
in disastrous financial shape. "Chuck's
typewriter was in hock and the gas had
been shut off in their apartment," says
Bill Nolan (co-author of Logan's Run).
"I remember Beaumont breaking the
seal and turning it back on; Chris re-
quired heat, and damn the gas company!
Chris got what he needed."

Nolan had met Beaumont briefly,
in 1952 at Universal, when they were
introduced by Ray Bradbury. "I recall
Chuck's sad face and ink-stained hands.
The first Beaumont story had already
appeared (in Amazing Stories) and
within a few more months, when I saw
him again, half a dozen others had
been sold. Our friendship was immedi-
ate and lasting. 1 found, in Chuck, a
warmth, a vitality, an honesty, and
depth of character which few possess.
And, more necessary, a wild, wacky,
irreverent sense of humor."

In February 1954, Beaumont and
Nolan began writing comics for Whit-
man Publications, where they helped to
"guide the destinies of such influential
literary figures as Bugs Bunny, Mickey
Mouse, Donald Duck, and Andy Panda."

Finally, in September of that year,
Beaumont's first major sale, "Black
Country," appeared in Playboy. Equally
adept at fiction and non-fiction, Beau-
mont soon penned a large body of short
fiction, nostalgic essays, and personali-
ty profiles for the magazine. Outstand-
ing among them is the essay "Chaplin,"
which won him their Best Article Award,
and "Black Country," a ten-thousand-
word novella about a terminally ill
jazzman. Ray Russell ( Playboy's editor
during the 1950s, and author of many
works of fiction, including Incubus and
Sardonicus) considers "Black Country"
the best story Playboy ever bought.
"Beaumont manages to set up a rhythm
and sustain a pitch, a concert pitch - to
use a musical term — and sustain that
from the very beginning to the very
end, says Russell. "It almost never
relaxes. You're on a beat throughout the
entire story until whhh, it's over. There
are very few stories that have that, by
Beaumont or anybody else."

Playboy soon placed Beaumont on
a five-hundred -dollar monthly retainer

for first refusal rights to his manu-
scripts, and later listed him as a con-
tributing editor.

Beaumont had reached the turning
point in his career.

The Fast Track

By the mid-Fifties, Beaumont's stories
began to appear in the most prestigious
magazines in the nation, including
Esquire, Collier's, and The Saturday
Evening Post. 1954 also marked the be-
ginning of his career in television when,
in April, his teleplay "Masquerade"
aired on Four Star Playhouse. In the
years to follow, he would write a num-
ber of scripts, many in collaboration
with Richard Matheson. "For a year or
two, we wrote together on all sorts of
projects: Have Gun Will Travel, Buck-
skin, Philip Marlowe, The D.A.’s Man.
Real crap, most of it," says Matheson,
laughingly. "But it was fun, because we
had never done this before. But eventu-
ally we decided that we really didn't
need to collaborate, and chose to go
our own ways."

Beaumont's entry into television,
coupled with his success at Playboy,
soon enabled him to participate in what
was to become a new and exciting hobby
— auto racing. In February 1955, Beau-
mont and Nolan attended their first
sports car race and the sport instantly
became one of the great fascinations of

their lives— a fascination that quickly
included John Tomerlin as well.

The trio could soon be found at-
tending and competing in weekend rac-
ing events on the West Coast, and writ-
ing voluminously for motoring journals
such as Road & Track and Sports Car
Illustrated. (Beaumont and Nolan also
edited two thick books on the subject.
Omnibus of Speed and When Engines
Roar.)

Of their racing abilities, Nolan says:
"We weren't great, by any means, but
we were fairly good, fairly fast, and to-
tally crazy— which means we weren't
afraid of anything."

Beaumont's first short fiction col-
lection, The Hunger and Other Stories
(G.R Putnam's Sons) was released in
April of 1957 to favorable reviews.
Other collections soon followed, in-
cluding, Yonder: Stories of Fantasy and
Science Fiction (Bantam, 1958) and
Night Ride and Other Journeys (Ban-
tam, 1960).

Though he employed many writing
styles, the distinct Beaumont "signature"
was always in evidence. "His writing
was brisk and very terse," says Bradbury.
"There's a great similarity to John Col-
lier. Collier rubbed off on him, just as
Collier rubbed off on me. And it was
all to the good: good, short, to the
point, imaginative storytelling. A lot of
us are Collier's indirect sons, but you

learn, as the years pass, to shake the in-
fluence. But it's certainly there. I also
see carry-overs from my work in Chuck.
It's inevitable, because we were around
each other so much. I told him about
Eudora Welty and Katherine Anne Por-
ter. I think that also shows. And it's all
to the good."

Into the Twilight Zone

By 1958, Beaumont had gotten screen-
writing credits on a number of televi-
sion series. But it was on a project uni-
quely suited to his fantastic imagination
that Beaumont would achieve his
widest recognition.

Although television had proved it-
self capable of producing distinguished,
high-quality drama on such anthology
programs as Kraft Television Theater
and Playhouse 90, most network
programming was an endless string of
westerns, situation comedies, and police
dramas. But in 1959, Rod Serling, who
had written Emmy-winning teleplays
for those anthology series, announced
that he was going to create a new kind
of television series —The Twilight Zone.

"This is something I've wanted to
do for years," said Serling in an inter-
view at the time. "Television hasn't
touched it yet. Sure, there have been
science fiction and fantasy shows be-
fore, but most of them were involved
with gadgets or leprechauns. The Twi-

CONTINUED ON PAGE 76

TWILIGHT ZONE 53

YOUR THREE
MINUTES
ARE
UP

■ BY GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON ■

I have become increasingly aware of the briefness of life.

Sitting here in this improvised workroom in my little home in Pacoima, late at night after the
family has gone to bed, touching this battered portable, I remember only yesterday when the
typewriter was new and I wanted so desperately to be a published writer of short stories like my
friend Charles Beaumont. It was like a crazy need.

Writing is a lonely business.

It tends to make you reclusive. Because it is difficult to concentrate, to get lost in the work
while others are around, more and more you seek a place to be alone.

When I used to hang around with the Group, learning to be a writer, little did I know that I
would spend so many solitary hours at night dreaming.

God knows, I'd rather be down the hall in the bedroom cuddled up with Lola than here in
the workroom trying to build a story so that Lola and I can earn the money necessary to keep
the bills paid, to feed us and allow us to be together.

Even after all these years we are still best friends who can't be in the same room without
plunging into earnest conversation, with both of us talking as fast as we can. Only a closed door
stops the avalanche of eager words that continually pass between us. I've taken to working late at
night, after she has gone to bed and the world has quieted down, alone in what was once a
spare bedroom, trying to fit together just those words on paper that might excite an editor and
eventually bring in the money we need. The only way to survive is to write stories that sell.

Which is why I was in my workroom at three in the morning, lost in language, when the
telephone rang.

I grabbed it to keep it from waking Lola, aware of the lateness of the hour and apprehensive
because calls this late often portend trouble.

"Hello?" I said.

A woman with a telephone company voice said, "This is the Special Operator. I have a
person-to-person call for George Clayton Johnson."

I wondered what kind of trouble it was. "This is George."

Click-buzz and I heard her saying from farther away, "I have your party on the line, sir.

One moment . .

Another click and the woman was gone. Then I heard a voice saying:

"Hello, George. I thought I might catch you now. I know you like to work at night."

The voice was warm and familiar.

It was the voice of Charles Beaumont. ^

ILLUSTRATION BY JAMES STONEBRAKER

I never realized,
when II was
hanging around
with the Group,
that writers
spend so many
solitary hours at
night dreaming.
That’s w hat I
was doing at
three in the
morning, when
the telephone
rang —

.JfpMn fjj

^ /m

m

I Mmk

|Rm

TWILIGHT ZONE 55

5 ,

rr

THREE MINUTES

“It’s only
while you’re
on E^rth
that you get
your three
wishes/’ said
Beaumont’s
voice. “If
you have the
will to reach
for them.”

"I hope I'm not interrupting any-
thing important. I thought if you
weren’t too busy we could talk for a
few minutes."

I felt the hair go up on my spine.

Charles Beaumont has been dead
more than twenty years.

"Who is this?" I said, suspicious. I
could feel myself suddenly becoming
angry.

"It is I," the familiar voice intoned
solemnly. "It is only and merely I, but
let's not waste time. I have a lot of
questions to ask— firstly, how's the
Group? Have you seen them lately7"

My God. Whoever was doing him
had all Chuck's inflections down pat.
Abruptly I felt cold, aware of the night.
I heard the faint tinkle of ice in a glass.
A thought crossed my mind: Do they
serve alcohol in Heaven?

"This isn't funny," I said. "Not at

all."

"George," said Beaumont's voice
with a note of disappointment, "I had
expected you to be quicker."

I found myself wanting to prove
how quick I could be. Beaumont always
had that effect on me.

"Okay, Chuck," I said tightly. "I'll
go along with the gag. So here we are
in the Twilight Zone. How are things at
your end? Is it the standard Heaven?"

"Not exactly," he said. "That's why
I called."

Now, I thought, here's where we
find out what this is all about. "Tell me
more."

"The Greater Truth is that one
man's Heaven is another man's Hell."

Knowing how much English he
could put on things, I said, "Give it to
me with the bark off."

"It's exactly the way I imagined it
would be. Everything is perfect. There
is not a discordant note. There is never
any waiting and no one disputes any-
thing I say. Do you see the implica-
tions?" he asked sharply.

"I read that a man's reach should
exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven
for?" I said, trying to understand.

"Exactly," said Beaumont's voice
somberly, and then, brightening, added,
"but it's my turn. What about Burt Shon-
berg? What is his latest stuff like?"

"He died, Chuck," I said, reminded
of the brilliant artist whose luminous
paintings had enlightened us all.

"Oh. I didn’t know."

The sound of the words chilled my
blood. "Chuck, I said. "Burt was one of
the good guys. Haven't you seen him
around7"

"No," he said.

I sat stunned, thinking. My

Father's house has many mansions.

'And the Group7 Are they still
living?"

"Yes."

I could hear relief in his voice.
And do you still take each other to the
beach7"

I remembered those night-long ses-
sions of naked encounter and mutual
psychiatry with the four of us jammed
into Chuck's new Volkswagen. We
would drive along the seacoast or
hunch together over steamy coffee cups
in an all-night diner to thresh out the
problems of the world while pointing
out each other's flaws, stripping away
the falseness.

For Chuck they were fun, but for
me those confrontations were often
nightmares as I defended myself against
self-satisfied challengers: John, who
figured out how he should feel before
becoming emotional, with visions of
himself as a no-nonsense executive
with a taste for the finer things in life;
Bill, who would kid his way out, the
willing focus of Chuck's jokes who
never forgot or misplaced anything,
determined to make a living from writ-
ing, any kind of writing, happy when
the heat wasn't on him; and Chuck
Beaumont, keeping things moving with
his aggressive manner and willingness
to go first, somehow knowing that he
was bulletproof, that he was the master
of verbal judo who was living a
charmed life.

Among us. Chuck was the authori-
ty on writing.

He had written The Hunger and
Other Stories, had already published
his first hardcover novel, was selling
regularly to slick magazines like Play-
boy and was being sent to the studios
on interviews by his Hollywood agent,
Malcolm Stewart of the Ingo Preminger
Agency on Sunset.

He was a proven success.

Bill was selling stories and articles
to the men's magazines.

John had been taken on by the
Harold Matson Agency in New York
and there was talk of a book contract.

I didn't have an agent. All I had
sold was an original movie script for
peanuts and after several years it
looked as though it would never be
produced. All of my attempts to write
short stories had come back again till I
was blind to their faults. Baffled by the
problem, I had taken to procrastinating
while I figured out the secret, studying
Chuck and the others for clues on how
the magic act was done. Was it the
neatly typed pages, typed and re-typed
to perfection? Was it the charm, the

56 TWILIGHT ZONE

personality, the telephone manner? Was
it connections? Was it luck?

Chuck insisted it was work, and
that was echoed by the others. He
talked a lot about forcing himself to sit
in the chair. He would put a piece of
paper in the typer and make himself
stay there even if the words wouldn't
come. He said it was the way he got
that trance state where he forgot him-
self and became the work. He had
adopted a schedule and stuck to it,
which wasn’t my way. That's what I'd
quit my job to avoid.

So all too often I'd find myself

backed into an uncomfortable corner by
all three of them at once; forced to
admit that, measured by my progress, I
could be wrong.

I was there to learn, wasn't I?

Somehow it was different when it
was Chuck who was outflanked. He
would smile warmly at us and thank us
for straightening him out while praising
us for our insights into his self-
delusions.

Yes, I remembered those enlighten-
ing torture sessions we called "being
taken to the beach."

"No," I said. "We haven't been to
the beach in years."

"Why not?" Chuck's voice sounded

dismayed. "It appeared to me that you
liked and admired each other."

"Sure," I said, "but you were the
center. You must have known that the
Group would pull apart without you.
Oh, not at once. Bill and I wrote a fair-
ly successful book together but it
turned out that the big attraction be-
tween us was you. We spent our time
together, waiting.

"You'd lock yourself away, working
on something while we'd wait for you
to come out and play. We'd see each
other from time to time, but the day
would come when you'd finish the

script or the story and you'd be back
again. Then the Group would come
alive. That was when you, tired of soli-
tude, would want excitement. The min-
ute you'd come out of the office of
yours with the manuscript under your
arm you'd call one of us on the phone
and he'd come running, maybe picking
up somebody on the way. You knew
how to orchestrate these things so we'd
all end up at your place to talk and lis-
ten to the hi-fi or pile into a car and go
for a drive . . .

"It was your group. Chuck. With-
out you to center on, we simply discov-
ered that we all lived in different
worlds. When John Donne wrote, "No

man is an island,' he was mistaken. We
may share the Earth but each man is a
universe of his own creation. His
dreams. His lusts. His needs. Every
man is a god who has forgotten his
divinity."

"Exactly," said the voice of Charles
Beaumont. "That's why it's so important
that you call the others. Get them back
together again. It's only while you're on
Earth that you get your three wishes —
if you have the will to reach for them.
It's magic interacting with the throng.
There are dangers, of course. It's easy
to forget yourself and get lost in all the
exciting activity, to be caught up in the
world . . . but you must not avoid it,
either.

"Call them, George. Get the Group
together. Don't let them drift out of
your life.

"Hug them to you.

"Cling to them.

"Pray for them.

"Cherish them.

"Didn't you know that if each of us
lives in his own world, he also lives in
his own Heaven7

"It gets very lonely when the
others aren't around. . .George, hurry.
There is only so much time. Infinity is
only a heartbeat long. Eternity is now.
For God's sake, wake up. . .!"

There was suddenly a click-buzz
on the phone and I heard the colorless
voice of the Special Operator.

"I'nf sorry to disconnect you, sir,
but your three minutes are up."

Far off, away, I thought I heard an
anguished cry. Then the familiar dial
tone.

I fumbled the phone back into the
cradle and sat there for a moment,
thinking.

I could see what he meant about
there not being enough time. I wanted
to tell him that though he was right
about not letting the friendship die, I
couldn't suddenly stop working and call
John and Bill.

If I could simply stop what I'm do-
ing, the first thing I'd do is go down the
hall to the bedroom where my wife,
Lola, lies sleeping.

Don't you understand. Chuck, it
isn't only the money to pay the bills?
There is a Greater Truth. Don't you
know that when you were alone in
your office writing those stories, you
were touching more people more deeply
with the quality of your mind and
thoughts than you ever could in a car
driving along a beach with three guys?
And don't you see why I couldn't leave
the workroom until I finished this
story? ■

TWILIGHT ZONE 57

RICHARD CHRISTIAN MATHESON

ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN LABBE

Exhibit A: two
beautiful people
frozen forever
on celluloid. But
this time the
camera has
caught some-
thing they never
meant to
reveal. . . .

They met at this very strange party in Malibu.

The house was Moorish design and a heavy industry crowd sat on tubby
Road To Morocco pillows, danced, snorted, and lied to each other as perfect surf
supplied a metronome.

She was an actress, studying at one of the local academies and getting in for
Equity-waiver auditions. He was. . .she wasn't sure. She asked him and he dropped
two new cubes into her vodka-tonic and said:

"I work when I feel inspired."

They stood by the bar's open glass door, watching the ocean foam, and his
white scarf was suddenly stolen by night wind, flying into the blackness; a ghostly
serpent. She stared into his dark eyes, and he touched her cheek, asking if she
was alone.

An hour later they walked on the beach, and were soon laughing, celebrating
having found each other at such a dull party. He was a world traveler named
Gregory and she liked his sense of humor, though he preferred not to talk about
himself; still, as they crunched through moist sand, she managed to learn he'd been
married, loved dogs, and knew the address of every great restaurant in Paris. She
told him she'd never been to Paris.

At nine-thirty sharp, a screening of The African Queen began in the plush liv-
ing room which rose over a mirror tide and she sat beside him, nibbling crackers
and sharing funny secrets.

Now and then, during the film, she would peek over at him and he'd smile,
making her feel pleasingly like a child; like he watched her as a father might, tak-
ing his little girl to her first movie. As Humphrey Bogart's stomach grumbled and
Katherine Hepburn glared politely, the two new friends held hands and she looked
over, aching to touch him; to feel him.

At two a.m., guests began to yawn and sleepy, stoned-out couples hugged the
host, saying it was the best party they'd ever been to. He was a tanned studio sul-
tan and kissed their cheeks and smiled, though it was impossible to tell if he be-
lieved every word or memorized which faces deceived him.

That was when Gregory asked to drive her home. She was thrilled, feigned
reluctance, and said she couldn't impose. But when he threw an arm around her ^

TWILIGHT ZONE 59

They waited for
the red light te
signal them,
made funny faces
as the machine
exploded light,
bleaching them
morgue white.

and whispered a joke in her ear, she
laughed and grabbed her purse.

They took his Mercedes 500 SL and
streaked down Pacific Coast Highway,
listening to Z.Z. Top's Afterburner al-
bum cranked to a million watts, laughing
like insane teenagers. The top was down
and their hair was pulled into Dracula
tightness by cool winds as the Mercedes
purred through fog and he reached over,
pulling her closer. Ahead, they could see
a fuzzy necklace of lights that stretched
down the throat of the coastline, fifty
miles worth, lighting the way.

"Beautiful," she said, watching the
wipers arm-wrestle mist.

He slid his electric window down
and wind swirled his hair into a tidepool
as they ran a red light and sped south
toward her apartment in Brentwood.

That's when they saw it.

A traveling carnival. It was stand-
ing in the parking lot of the Malibu
Colony Market and their faces were
awash in pink and green neon as they
drove in and stared at the huge pendu-
lum rockets that had screams pouring
from spinning tips.

He killed the engine, did some
lines of blow with her and ran warm
fingers across her cold face. She touched
her lips to his salty palm and gently
tasted it, as a cage full of monkeys
shrieked in the distance.

You taste good, she said, words
carried from her mouth on visible breath,
like a comic-book character whose
ideas emerge in a balloon.

They wandered through the sour
smells of the carnival, drinking blue
slush and watching an elephant with
sad eyes stand on one foot. And when
they threw Ping-Pong balls into empty
aquariums, he won her a small goldfish,
which she accepted like it was a dia-
mond. She carried it in a baggie and it
swam and stared at them, dangling in
her perfectly manicured hand.

They strolled near a giant ferris
wheel and were drawn by pulsing bulbs
that guarded the portal to the Coin
Arcade. Inside, on a lake of sawdust,
they had their fortunes told by "Madame
Destiny" who stared, frozen, until she
was slipped a token, then came alive,
mechanical face tensing with worry.
She told them both to beware of strang-
ers, then lifted a Mona Lisa smile and
said evil thoughts couldn't be hidden.
After more trance sounds, which she
hummed ominously, the seer became stiff
again, suddenly dead, eyes closing, paint-
ed hands lifeless over the chipped crys-
tal ball. They thanked her with amused
smiles and walked on, seeing a row of
photo booths, ratty curtains half-

drawn. On each was stenciled: Four
Photos - 50c.

"I have a little more change," he
said, sliding fingers into his pants pock-
et. She said she was game and tapped
at her goldfish as its features bulged
curiously.

They barely fit inside the third
booth and she told him it reminded her
of an old Marx Brothers movie she once
saw where a ridiculous number of peo-
ple crammed into a tiny stateroom. He
said he'd never seen that one and worked
on spinning the piano-type stool higher.

"You think it wants to have its pic-
ture taken?" She was staring at the tiny,
wriggling creature in the baggie and
puckering her lips, smiling protectively.

Somehow she and Gregory man-
aged to finaEy get in position and as
she sat on his lap, he dropped in two
coins. They waited for the red light to
signal them and when it did, they made
funny faces as the machine buzzed and
exploded light in their faces, bleaching
them morgue white.

The groaning booth recorded their
four poses in under thirty seconds: one
with no expression, the second with
tongues out, the third with crossed eyes
and crazy smiles, the last with them
kissing and her holding the fish up
proudly, as if it were a newborn child.

When it was done, they laughed
and freed themselves from the booth,
waiting outside for the photos.

But they never came.

They waited ten minutes. Twenty.
And finally they walked away impatient-
ly, passing Madame Destiny and wish-
ing her a good life. She seemed to move
in the blinking colors of the arcade,
head turning slightly inside the glass
box, eyes flashing dread.

The two of them bought tickets for
the House of Mirrors and as they dis-
appeared into its maze of lawless reflec-
tions, a small boy eating a chili dog
walked by the photo booth. He heard a
developing sound and watched as a nar-
row strip of photos slipped from the
booth into a corroded metal catch.

He took the photos and peered at
them curiously, biting into his chili dog.
In the first exposure was an expression-
less young couple, in the second the
woman looked scared and the man hos-
tile. In the third, she looked terrified
and he had a look of darkening imbal-
ance. In the last exposure, the man
looked satisfied while the woman looked
dead, her throat slit wide, eyes glassy.

The boy searched for the couple to
give them the photos, but only found a
baggie with a dead goldfish in it as he
stood in the empty lot of the market. ■

60 TWILIGHT ZONE

o

T

D

M

N S I O N S

THE

NEW

DINOSAURS

I 'm late for my interview with Dougal Dixon.

I’d arranged to meet him at New York's venera-
ble Algonquin Hotel, a place laden with history. I
step off the elevator, buzz the bell breathlessly. A
bearded man, younger than I'd expected, opens the door. I
apologize profusely for my tardiness. He seems surprised. "I
hadn't noticed the time," he says.

It fits. To the man perched in the faded chair across from
me, a few minutes matter no more than the decades of histo-
ry this grand hotel has witnessed. For Dougal Dixon has a
passion for dinosaurs.

"I tend to think of things in terms of millions of years,"
says Dixon, "Tens of millions of years, hundreds of millions
of years." He is so intrigued by dinosaurs that he has created
a world in which they never died out and brought it to life
in a book called The New Dinosaurs, published by Salem
House. In a series of frighteningly realistic full-color draw-
ings by a team of artists, he shows us "new" dinosaurs that
resemble ostriches, giraffes, and even whales, as well as
dinosaurs that look like nothing that's ever lived on earth.

"To put it in a science fiction context," says Dixon, "the
best thing to do is to imagine a parallel universe in which the
extinction of dinosaurs had not taken place. And if we could
jump from our universe into that universe, this is what we
would be looking at."

Dixon leans forward in his chair, and chuckles quietly
from time to time during the interview, rubs his chin, then
leans back in his chair, looking out the window. I get the
feeling he'd rather be working on his next book, or on one of
the models for his creatures. Still, he thinks hard about my
questions, giving them his most carefully considered response.

Would dinosaurs have evolved intelligence? "Human in-
telligence as we understand it is only one possible kind of in-
telligence," says Dixon. "It has yet to prove itself as having
any long-term advantage for the species. Some of the
dinosaurs were a lot more 'intelligent' than we give them
credit for, but it was of the sort that provided a more effi-
cient hunting style, a means of finding food more easily than
their competitors." So there are no humanoid dinosaurs in
The New Dinosaurs. One scans its pages in vain looking for
a tyrannosaurus riding a Harley or a stegosaur wearing
homrims and listening to Coltrane.

Do I detect a bias against humans? 'Animals have always
been more interesting, to me, than people," he admits. "The
wildlife we're seeing today isn't a natural ecosytem at all, be-
cause of the influence humans have on the system. Human
beings are the joker in the deck."

But isn't he worried about the state of the planet, and
our future on it? "I do not belong to any preservation group
or environmental pressure group or anything like that," says
Dixon. "Largely it is because I tend to look at things over a
very long time span. I'm an optimist. If we wipe out some
species— or even ourselves— what is the result going to be in
five or ten million years time7 Once we are gone, whatever
is left will continue to evolve and develop, and take the
places of things we have wiped out." It's a grand vision. But
personally. I'm hoping the human race stays in the picture a
little while longer. ■

ARTICLE BY

JENNIFER STEINHAUER

TWILIGHT ZONE 61

The Lord had chosen him
to destroy the Queen of
Darkness. Now, at last,
he'd found her, in the
heart of the City ....

FICTION BY

NANCY

BAKER

ILLUSTRATION BY
VALERIE WARREN

The posters led him to her. They grew along the axis of the
city's main streets, planted there by her acolytes. Festooning
the walls of construction sites, circling lamp posts, tacked
onto trees, they were the signs he used to trace her paths
throughout the city.

At first, he had barely noticed them. He had been too
intent on hunting down another of the sinners he had vowed
to eradicate. But when she, too, had played him false, prov-
ing, despite extensive examination, to be no more than any
other wicked daughter of Eve, the posters had been waiting.

He stood before a wall of them now, while the October
wind chased leaves in circles at his feet. How could he have
missed the signs? She flaunted them like twisted badges of
honor; the shock of midnight hair, the eyes black-lined and
hellishly bright against the corpse-like pallor of her skin.
Even her name — Lilith. The rejected first wife of Adam, cast
out of Eden for witchcraft, she had thrown in her lot with
the Arch-Deceiver. What woman who was not a witch would
choose such a name?

They had thought themselves safe, the Daughters of
Evil. Thought that in a world of televised carnage and sensual
corruption, they could hide. Who would believe in such ancient
evil, when modern ones abounded like mushroom clouds?

But he had not forgotten. He remembered his Lord's in-
junction. It was written down for all to see, even if none would
heed it. "Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch To Live."

The command was very clear and, clear of mind and con-
science, he obeyed it. It was not hard to find the offenders;
they advertised their presence freely. Fortune-tellers, dancers,
whores, writers of occult pornography, what were they all
but manifestations of that one great whore, the first witch?

So he had obediently tracked them down and submitted
them to the ancient tests:The needles to search out the devil's
mark that did not bleed, the racks, the water that would
purify them in death. That not all confessed to their crimes
had disturbed him at first, as did the incontrovertible evi-
dence of innocence the drowned corpses represented. Then he
realized that they were mere dupes of the greater evil, bound
to it by their sex, if not by their conscious will. They had
been set in his path to distract him from his true quarry.
After that, the confessions did not matter.

The world, of course, did- not understand. The papers, the
television, were full of news of his exploits, of how he'd com-
pletely baffled the police. What did they expect? He was
about his Lord's business; his Lord would protect him. But
the words hurt sometimes. Psychopath, maniac, sadist. If
they only knew the truth, he knew they'd praise him for his ^

TWILIGHT ZONE

1 ,

r

actions, acknowledge the righteousness
of his lonely crusade.

Rapist was the word that hurt the
most. True, he had fallen, once or twice,
tempted beyond resistance by the naked,
bruised body spread out before him.
But that was their wickedness, not his.
How could any man resist for long the
wiles of a witch? He had scourged that
weakness from himself now, and that
printed lie at least had stopped.

Yes, the sin was gone, so he had
thought. But now, standing before the
wall emblazoned with her image, he felt
the traitorous stirring in his groin. There
could be no doubt now. The weak hu-
manity in him knew the lure of her
evil, was rising to point it out, for all to
see. There could be no clearer sign.

He began to track her then, through
the cavernous temples where she held
her rites. Their very names were infamy
to him. . .The Cave, The Pariah Club,
Zone Zero. It cost him to pass through
those hell-holes untainted. The dark-
ness, the sleek bodies in black and sil-
ver, even the thunderous, seducfive rum-
ble of her music, all had an allure that
drew him, even though he could see the
corrupt, rotting features of the damned
beneath the painted faces and hear the
laughter of demons in her soaring voice.

As the nights passed, he learned
where she lived, what she looked like
under her mask. It had surprised him at
first, that the Queen of Darkness would
look so. . .ordinary. Without the erotic
allure of her paint, she was no more
than a passably pretty young woman.
Then he saw the subtlety of that trap
and marveled once again at the infinite,
deceptive power of evil. No one, un-
masking the witch Lilith, would see the
danger in those pale features. And so
would turn away, forgetting that they
had ever suspected her.

Night after night, he watched her
whirl about the stage, a lean black der-
vish. He listened to her voice wail out
over the screaming crowds. Her songs
were blasphemy, as wickedly seductive
as her lithe body, her black-lipped mouth.
She sang of shadows, and demon-
lovers, and the power of darkness. Night
after night, he followed her home and
crouched on the fire escape outside her
window, watching the seemingly inno-
cent rituals of her life.

He could have taken her a thou-
sand times, but some voice inside told
him the time was not right. This was no
simple task he had set himself, this de-
struction of the greatest of Evil's
whores. When the time came, he would
know it.

The posters told him, just as they

had led him to her. "Special Halloween
Midnight Show."

The day of All Hallow's Eve dawned
cold and gray. He barely noticed; the
the anticipation that surged through
him made the world a flame in his eyes.
All the weeks of waiting and watching
would come to an end tonight. And so
would his increasing nervousness, the
itchy twitch between his shoulder blades
that made him feel watched, and kept
him away from her fire escape. Tonight,
his great duty would be done. What
would come after that, he did not know,
but he distantly imagined a rapture that
would trumpet him to heaven.

He was in the club early, pushing
his way closer to the front than he had
ever dared to go. Tonight he was stronger
than all her rituals. Tonight, he was
omnipotent.

The announcer took the stage at
midnight, seizing the microphone and
staring down at the costumed crowd.
"Good evening," he drawled. "It's Hallow-
een. Do you know where your soul is?"

The crowd around him surged and
howled like the demons whose garb
they affected. He knew where his soul
was. He could feel it, bright and hun-
gry, filling him. "Well, we're going to
take it. . .we're going to shake it. . .and
we're going to steal it. Because tonight,
Zone Zero is proud to present our own
Queen of Darkness . . . Lilith and the
Nightwalkers!"

The lights plunged out and around
him he heard the crowd screaming her
name. He was screaming too, he real-
ized, in challenge.

The bass rumble began, then the
heavy heartbeat of the drums, the wail
of the guitar. Finally, as the music built
to an ominous crescendo, came her
voice, caressing the darkness.

“I’m on the night shift
Oh, tonight I’m waiting. . .”

He had not imagined she could be
more wicked than before— but she was.
Her eyes burned like amber flames and
her body coiled and uncoiled on stage
with savage grace. Her voice was incan-
descent. It burned along his nerves,
sapping his strength. He found himself
swaying and jumping with the tightly-
packed crowd and when he tried to fight
it, they seemed to laugh and push him
closer to the stage.

He clung to his resolution, to the
memory of the great responsibility with
which he had been charged. He chanted
the sacred instructions under his breath,
a charm to ward off the pull of her
voice, her eyes, her body.

"This song," she said, in a lull in
the cacophony of sound, "is for some-

one out there. I know who you are. 1
know what you want." She stared out
over the crowd for a moment, then bent
her dark head and began to sing.

“You hear her singing, with a
voice like temptation
Like the one you hear in your
guignol dreams

Painting demons over throbbing
drums

She’s stealing souls in the
steely hum

And you know, you know what
she really means. . .”

She knew, he realized with shock.
She knew. Knew he was there, knew
his mission, knew his very soul. The
thought horrified and revolted him.
How could she know? Had she been
toying with him all along, sending out
her decoys to tempt him, then the pos-
ters to draw him to her?

“You see her moving like a ser-
pent in the garden
Like the one that leaves the fire
in your veins

Just like all the good books say
Everyone's gonna thank you
someday

Cause you know, you know
they’re all the same. . .”

He tried to turn, to flee that mock-
ing, knowing voice, but he could not
move, hemmed in by the surging crowd.
Fists pounded the air around him, driv-
ing him forward. Desperately, he fum-
bled in his pocket for his knife, anoint-
ed now with holy water and blessed in
preparation for the night's work. He
clung to it like a talisman.

“As you're pulling down the
shade

You can hear her calling
As you’re reaching for the blade
You can see her falling
Just one touch and she'll be
falling, falling, falling
Falling for you ...”

She repealed the last line over and
over, beckoning, cajoling. She was on
her knees, calling to him, her voice a
promise. He felt his body respond again,
felt the rush of fire along his limbs and
the heavy heat centering in his groin.

"No!" he screamed, above the thun-
der of the music "No!" She could not
do this to him. He had to make her
stop. Had to end her evil now, no mat-
ter what the cost.

The thin row of people between
himself and the stage melted away, then
he was alone, scrambling up into the
light. In its glare, time seemed to stop.
He saw her eyes widen in terror, her
mouth open to scream. There were
shouts from his right and he half-

64 TWILIGHT ZONE

Her songs
were

blasphemy,
as wickedly
seductive as
her lithe body,
her black-
lipped mouth.

turned to stare into the black barrels of
the guns. Distantly, he heard the police-
men ordering him to freeze.

Why had she called them? he won-
dered. This had been between the two
of them. Didn't she know that the bat-
tle between good and evil must always
be fought alone? Betrayed, he turned
back to face her.

The first bullet shattered his shoul-
der, spun him back to take the second
through his chest. The din in his ears
faded to a buzz of sound and the lights

wavered over his head. Dimly, he real-
ized he was lying down and couldn't re-
member how he'd gotten there. Where
was she? He turned his head, his vision
narrowing, and found her crouched in
the arms of one of the policemen.

As the light went out, he thought
he saw her smile.

Lilith sat on her bed and stared at the
red-wrapped bundle in her lap. The
candles, melted to mere stubs after their
long duty the night before, cast flicker-

ing shadows across her face.

There was a sound from the street.
Out of habit, she avoided glancing at
the fire escape outside the shrouded
window, where the dark figure had
crouched so many nights. She let a long
breath sigh out. Living out the routine
of her life beneath the heavy weight of
that mad gaze had been more draining
than she thought, especially after the
police had finally admitted the suspect-
ed identity of the voyeur.

They had managed, even in their
self-congratulatory triumph, to remember
to reprimand her for not telling them
about the song, about her plan to lure
the killer into their sights. How long
could you have protected me? she had
countered. All he had to do was wait. I
wanted to end it once and for all.

Lilith shifted in her cross-legged
stance on the tumbled sheets. She had
not made the bed that morning, and the
faint scent of sex hung in the air. It was
a good thing he hadn't been outside her
window last night, she thought, narrow
lips quirking a little. Bedding Lieuten-
ant Davis had been necessary, but that
did not mean she had to find it unpleas-
ant. What had followed had been
equally necessary and, she reluctantly
admitted, strangely more exciting.

Slowly, she unwrapped the red silk,
one comer at a time. She began to hum,
faint, lullaby-like tones that seemed the
antithesis «of the wild violence she con-
jured up on stage. She drew out, one
by one, the objects the red flower in
her lap unfurled to reveal.

Six bullets, the ones she had taken
from Davis's gun the night before and
replaced, after proper ritual, with ones
she had purchased earlier. One spent
shell, marked with symbols in red and
black.

She stared at the last object for a
moment. The cotton doll was clumsily
made, features stitched roughly across
its face, coarse brown yam for hair. It
was hard to create one without a pos-
session of the person it was to repre-
sent; that was why there had been no
room for subtlety in either its appear-
ance or its purpose. The method had
been crude, but the outcome certain.
When she put her finger to the bullet
hole in its chest, bits of charred cotton
flaked away and clung to her skin.

She wondered absently what his
name had been. She'd find out, no
doubt, when the papers came out the
next day. Whoever he was, he'd been
right. Righter than he would ever
know.

Singing softly, Lilith rose and head-
ed for the incinerator shaft. ■

TWILIGHT ZONE 65

Fish Tale s A dream date
from LINDEMANN’S CATCH.

►URTESY OF UNIVERSAL TEI

Part eleve

"You KNOW WHAT GROWS FROM OLD LADIES' FINGERS?" ASKS CaM-
eron Mitchell in a crazed voice, staring straight into the cam-
era. "Old ladies."

It's January 5, 1972, and Night Gallery is beginning the
last third of its second season in memorable fashion with a
little item called "Green Fingers."

"That's one people talked about for a long time," said
makeup artist Leonard Engelman, whose job it was to make
actress Elsa Lanchester look newly grown and uprooted from
the garden. "I still hear comment about that. For some rea-
son, that's one that people always seem to remember.

This episode about a greedy land developer and a little
old lady who could grow anything in her garden benefited
from an excellent script adaptation by Rod Serling, the typi-
cally skilled direction of John Badham, and good perform-
ances by the two lead stars, particularly acclaimed actress
Elsa Lanchester, well-known for her role as "The Bride of
Frankenstein." Badham remembers her as "very wonderful
and imaginative and very sweet." He also had good words
for Cameron Mitchell, but says that "he was always worrying
about this and that and the next thing. He just walked
around and worried and worried and worried."

Badham had a few worries of his own. "I remember that
we were struggling with the budget. We wanted to have this
big lush garden and things growing all over everywhere." But
for some reason, the site chosen for the location shoot, says
z Badham, was "virtually out in the middle of the desert, with
m three roses and a cabbage plant sticking up— with virtually
no garden at all."

Nevertheless, Badham remembers the episode favorably
— and was pleased, for a very personal reason, that others
do as well. Shortly after finishing work on the series, he met
a woman he very much wanted to impress. Without refer-
ring to particular titles, he mentioned his work on the series.
"When she found out I had been doing Night Gallery, she
said, 'Oh! Do you remember the one that had this old wom-
an whose fingers grew up out of the ground?' "

Badham and the young lady were eventually married.

NAME THAT TUNE

TWO OTHER EPISODES FOLLOWED "GREEN FINGERS" THAT EVENING.

"The Funeral," the story of a vampire staging a second funer-
al for himself, featured a script by Richard Matheson and
two fine comic performances by Werner Klemperer and Joe
Flynn. It suffered, however, from a curious lack of energy in
its direction and editing, as well as from too much mugging
by the supporting actors (including producer Jack Laird in a
cameo appearance).

"The Tune In Dan's Cafe," directed by David Rawlins,
one of Night Gallery's film editors, was a tale of love, betray-
al, and a haunted jukebox which plays only one particular
country-western song. Although the show holds the viewer's
interest, it's all ultimately a little vague. Nevertheless, the
episode struck a chord with the audience — not the story, but
the "tune," itself.

The appropriately twangy melody was composed by
Night Gallery's musical supervisor Hal Mooney, and the lyr-
ics were written by one of the script's co-writers, Gerald San-
ford. "I wrote one little verse to it," says Sanford. "But Jack
[Laird] said to me, 'Look, this is very good. Why don't you
write a second verse to it?' I said fine. It took me two
minutes to write the first verse, and a minute to write the
second verse." Country-western singer Jerry Wallace was
then asked to do a quick recording of the song, and "If You
Leave Me Tonight, III Cry" made its debut on Night Gallery.

It was an instant hit. "The next day," says Sanford, "peo-
ple kept calling up [about the song]." Universal saw they had
a potential money-maker on their hands, so Jerry Wallace
was flown in from Nashville to re-record the song as a single
for Universal MCA's Decca Records.

larticle by

Kathryn M. Drennan
& J. Michael Straczynski

© 1989 Synthetic Worlds, Ltd.

TWILIGHT ZONE 67

ROD SERLING’S NIGHT GALLERY

GREEN FINGERS

The single entered the country-western charts on July
15, 1972, and stayed there for seventeen weeks, including
three weeks at number one. But that wasn't the end of it.

Currently, the song is still available on two albums, "Jerry
Wallace's Greatest Hits," and "MCA Records —Thirty Years of
Hits: 1958-1988." And instrumental versions of the tune have
been used on such television programs as CHIPS and Knight
Rider, and in the movie Smokey and the Bandit.

"I use it constantly," says Gerald, who has gone on to
write and develop other projects for Universal after leaving
Night Gallery. "I add it in the background, usually. It brings
me in about, I don't know, ten thousand dollars a year still.
Universal uses it all the time. I get a list on its use from all
over the world."

THE FLAT MALE

On January 12, Night Gallery brought its viewers a Serling
fantasy, a pure horror story, and a Laird dark comedy.

The comedy was "The Late Mr. Peddington," about a
woman shopping for her husband's casket in the aftermath of
his fall from a very high balcony. Producer Laird wrote the
adaptation from a short story by Frank Sisk called "The Flat
Male."

In the original story, the woman asks the undertaker
about the possibility of purchasing a very wide, very thin
casket to accommodate a corpse flattened by a fall. That par-
ticular detail was ultimately cut from the script and the name
was changed; but when artist Tom Wright was working on
the painting the episode was still called "The Hat Male."

"I took 'The Flat Male' literally," recalls Wright. "It was a
flat drawing, almost like a steamroller had rolled over this
guy, and you were looking straight down on him lying in the
road. That was a weird painting."

Serling seems to have agreed with that assessment for
the painting and the episode. "Not the most appetizing of
scenes," he said in his introduction while standing next to the
painting, "not the pleasantest of stories."

"The Late Mr. Peddington" is less amusing than Laird in-

tended it to be, but the direction, and the acting of Kim
Hunter and Harry Morgan, almost carry it off.

Morgan was not the first choice for the role of the un-
dertaker. "They wanted (Sir John] Gielgud for that," says
director Jeff Corey, "but Gielgud had had a lot of playing
undertakers. He just thought it was a little too baleful for
him. But Harry Morgan was lovely in it.

"I liked doing that one. Like most people I find under-
taking establishments kind of morbid and captivating. I don't
like to look at coffins but I look at them anyway. So, I tried
to get as many coffins as I could. You know undertakers
generally negotiate with you with the door ajar and [the de-
ceased] visible in an open casket, and you just want to run
out of the place. Anything you want, yes. Four limousines?
You bet.'"

OF MICE AND MERMAIDS

The horror tale, 'A Feast of Blood," and the Serling fan-
tasy, "Lindemann's Catch," were more successful episodes, but
both suffered in their climactic moments from less-than-
successful special effects.

It was the same old problem on both episodes— a limit-
ed budget and too little time to get things right. 'A Feast Of
Blood" concerns an odd broach that looks like a strange,
dead mouse until, by the removal of a pin, it grows into a
flesh-eating beast. Somehow director Jeannot Szwarc and a
strong cast featuring Norman Lloyd, Sondra Locke, and Her-
mione Baddeley make this work pretty well — until the mouse
grows to the size of a dog and attacks Sondra Locke.

Although Szwarc does not let the camera linger too long
on the beast, it is still obvious that the poor actress is wres-
tling with a large, unmoving stuffed mouse. It takes a few
moments before the episode can recover from this and re-
establish its horrific atmosphere for the denouement.

The original Serling fantasy that evening was "Linde-
mann's Catch," the dark story of a turn-of-the-century fisher-
man who catches a mermaid in his net. It is easily the best
episode of the evening, and overall one of Night Gallery's
better efforts, thanks in part to the fact that Serling's script
was not tampered with much by others. Director Jeff Corey,
working with cinematographer E. Charles Straumer, managed
to turn the back lot of Universal into an atmospheric, fog-
laden seaport perfect for the story. And, as usual, Corey
elicited strong performances from his cast. He recalls that
Anabel Garth, in particular, acted above and beyond the call
of duty.

"That poor girl who played the mermaid," says Corey,
"was out in the cold at three, four in the morning in the driz-
zle in the back lot; she got very severe bronchitis after that.
I felt just terrible. It's a pity she had no lines."

Creating a character who is a fish from the waist down,
and a human from the waist up, proved a tricky task for
makeup artists Leonard Engelman and John Chambers. First
they had to construct a believable fish tail, and then blend
the edges of the tail into the actress's skin so that it looked
like a natural part of her. In this they were quite successful.

But at the show's climax, the mermaid had to be trans-
formed into a woman from the waist down, and a fish from
the waist up. With limited time and money, Engelman and
Chambers did their best. Corey was extremely unhappy with
the results. "It just didn't look right," he said. "That's the only
time I worked on a Night Gallery episode where we had to
do a retake, because it certainly didn't work the first time,
and it didn't work the second time. I think technologically
they're more advanced now. They start the makeup from the
human face and evolve it into a fish. This seemed like a

68 TWILIGHT ZONE

ROD SERLING’S NIGHT GALLERY

fish laid over [the face]." After the second try, Corey had to
let it go. "I was hoping for some miraculous intercession be-
tween the lens and what I saw, but of course, it was just
dreadful. The lens is absolutely going to pick up what your
eyes see." Engelman had to agree. "It wasn't one of our
greatest creations."

NBC AND A KID FROM YALE

Not only did Night Gallery's special effects make for crea-
tive problems but also for network problems. Night Gallery
associate producer Herbert Wright (no relation to Tom
Wright) remembers that since NBC was always worried about
anything being too "horrific," special effects often had to be
double-checked with network executives.

"These days they do anything— you can show people's
brains falling out their eyeball and no one [cares] ," says
Wright. "But in those days, if you showed a wound that was
too deep or too bloody or too gory or whatever— nothing
but a scratch compared to what they're doing on film these
days — the network would go berserk."

Of course, gory effects weren't the network's only con-
cerns— they were terrified of anything that might offend peo-
ple or confuse them. And, says Wright, since the network ex-
ecs "inevitably didn't have a clue what we were doing, and
why we were doing it," they were especially worried about
Night Gallery.

"Herb Schlosser, the NBC exec assigned to the series,
didn’t understand fantasy, didn't understand horror, and was
totally lost," says Wright. 'And I was the guy who had to go
over and explain this week's monster or this week's horror
tale and why a [character] is growing out of the grave. I don't
know where Herb grew up, but he didn't grow up reading
Grimm's fairy tales. He must have grown up reading science
manuals or something, because he was very, very literal
about the whole thing.

"It drove Jack and me and Rod Serling up a tree. Rod
would have to make special calls to explain to Herb when I
was incapable of convincing him, say, why someone could
fall in love with a mermaid. Because [Schlosser would say]
‘There are no mermaids."’

Serling, however, was not supposed to be bothered with
these production problems except as a "court of last resort."
In general, the job of explaining— and defending— the series
fell to Wright. "We had violent fights. I several times left the
network and figured that I'd never work again, because of a
position that I had to take on behalf of the studio and Jack
and Rod on some of the shows."

For all the misery dealing with NBC caused Wright,
working on Night Gallery was still an exhilarating experience
for a young man just a few years out of Yale.

"It was my first actual production job in Hollywood,"
says Wright. "I grew up loving Twilight Zone, and Rod Ser-
ling was always one of my favorites, so to be able to get on
Night Gallery as my start was terrific I loved it. It was a
license to be crazy, and allowed me to work with an extraor-
dinary range of people in all different phases of production,
including casting and direction. It's an experience you have
maybe once in your lifetime."

One of the reasons Wright got involved in so many
phases of production was Laird's production style. "He really
didn't like to talk to people," says Wright. "He would much
prefer to sit in his office or be in a screening room or behind
a typewriter. Any time he had to go out and see people, it al-
ways irritated him. So he would kind of do things from his
office, and I would be the one sent out to talk to people on
the set, or go to the network."

THE FUNERAL

KEEPING ABREAST OF THE CENSORS

Convincing Herb Schlosser that a man could fall in love
with a mermaid proved to be a much easier task for Wright,
Laird, and Serling than proving to the network Standards &
Practices people (also known as the network censors) that
Lindemann’s Catch would not weaken the moral fiber of
America.

"It was beautiful," Wright sfeys of the episode. "Very well
done. But this is about a mermaid, and as we all know, mer-
maids do not wear size D-cup bras. Mermaids are nude from
the waist up and fish from the waist down, right? Big prob-
lem with the network. 'You're not going to show breasts are
you?' Come on, it was the late Sixties, Hair'd been around — I
mean, it wasn't like a big deal, but no one has ever shown
that on television."

After much discussion with the network, a deal was
struck. "We should show her breasts only if they were cov-
ered with her hair down the front," remembers Wright. "So
we had to carefully lay hair over there and glue it up and
down her breasts to be able to shoot this show. The network
guy was down to make sure that these breasts were covered.

"Comes the day I've got to take the film over there.
We've got twice the amount of broadcast standards guys we'd
normally have, and they're all ready to see these breasts,
and to make sure that America will not be troubled by the
sight of a nipple or something. About two thirds of the way
through this thing, all of a sudden 'There it is! There it is!' We
have to stop [the film] and run it back and forth. And I said,
'What are you talking about?' And they claim they can see
[something] just for a flash, when she's being carried. 'There's
a nipple! We know there's a nipple!' It was the great nipple
investigation.

"This went on for two weeks, with us going back and
forth, to the Moviola, the screening room, and all the way
up to the top guy at NBC. Turns out it was not her nipple at
all; it was her elbow. But we had to clip the' shot of the elbow
for fear that anyone in the audience might think that they'd
seen a nipple on Night Gallery." ■

TWILIGHT ZONE 69

Show- by- Show Guide

m wmmt.

GREEN FINGERS

GREEN FINGERS

Teleplay by Rod Serling, from a short story by R. C. Cook.
Directed by John Badham.

Cameron Mitchell (Michael J. Saunders), Elsa Lanchester
(Mrs. Bowen), Michael Bell (Ernest), Harry Hickox (Sheriff),
Bill Quinn (Doctor), Larry Watson (1st Deputy), Jeff Burton
(2nd Deputy), George Keymas (Crowley)

Good evening. Please come in. These little objets d'art that
you see surrounding me, you won't find in your average art
museum, because these are unusual paintings and statuary
that come to life, or death, whatever the case may be. Be-
cause this is The Night Gallery.

For the horticulturists amongst you, here's a dandy. A
lady who plants things, and then steps back and watches
them grow: roses, rhododendron, tulips, and things never be-
fore to be found coming out of the ground— just put in. The
subject of this painting has "Green Fingers."

The widow Bowen's home is surrounded by an explosion
of flowers and vegetables and plants of all kinds. It is also
blocking a new development project by the Saunders Con-
struction Company. Hence, the arrival —with cigar, limousine
and assorted plenipotentiaries -of Michael J. Saunders, deter-
mined to buy the place he describes as "a rinky-dink pimple
on the arm of progress."

But this is Mrs. Bowen's home, and not for sale. Her joy
is her garden. She can plant nearly anything, and it'll grow.
She indicates a stick of kindling, planted on a whim, and
now sprouting delicate branches. "I have green fingers, you
see," she explains. He understands gardens. His mother had a
garden. But he insists that she sell. She refuses. He leaves,
but is not finished yet.

That night, Saunders meets with Crowley, a hireling. He
tells Crowley to do what he must, but get her off that land.
Later, ambulances arrive at the Bowen house. The sheriff fol-
lows a trail of blood to the garden, where a hysterical Bowen

70 TWILIGHT ZONE

is working in the garden, in shock, one of her fingers having
been cut off by Crowley. The finger is nowhere to be found.
The seventy-seven-year-old widow dies of shock soon
thereafter.

Later, Saunders inspects the house that will shortly be
his. As he stands in the garden, the ground begins to swell.
He panics, runs for the car, but the driver leaves without
him. He returns to the garden, and now there is a hole in the
ground and tracks leading into the house. There he sees Mrs.
Bowen — but not quite Mrs. Bowen. Roots grow from her
legs, twigs from her arms. She told him she had green
fingers, she says. Everything she plants, grows.

Saunders stumbles out of the house, hair white with
shock, and half-mad, mutters, "Momma7 Anybody? Wanna
hear the funniest thing? You know what grows from old la-
dies' fingers7 Old ladies."

THE FUNERAL

Teleplay by Richard Matheson, from his short story.
Directed by John Meredyth Lucas.

Joe Flynn (Milton Silkline), Werner Klemperer (Ludwig
Astor), Harvey Jason (Morrow), Charles Macaulay (Count),
Jack Laird (Ygor), Lara Lacey (Jenny the Witch), Diana Hale
(First Vampire), Leonidas D. Ossetynski (Second Vampire),
Jerry Summers (Bruce the Werewolf)

Funeral home art, you might call it. Example: this item here.
The somber silence of shrouds, the gray, unhappy light of a
sunless dawn, and a horse-drawn casket, very much in keep-
ing with the motif of this place. The title of the painting,
"Funeral. "

Ludwig Astor arrives at Silkline's Cut-Rate Catafalques
in search of a funeral service. Milton Silkline is more than
happy to oblige, his motto, "When your loved one lies upon
that lonely couch of eternal sleep, let Silkline draw the cover-
let." Astor is touched, and requests their largest room, their
most expensive coffin, all the trimmings. Cost is no object.

Then Milton learns that the recipient of the services is
Astor himself. "I never had a proper going-off. It was all catch
as catch can, all improvised, nothing, how shall I say. . .
tasty." He always intended to make up for it. Milton is
outraged — until Astor leans forward, exposing the fangs of a
vampire. It's not a joke. He sets a date for the service, a
week hence. All must be prepared. Then he turns a corner,
and Milton sees a bat flying out of the building.

A week later, all is ready. One by one, the guests arrive.
Vampires, a witch, a werewolf, a ghoul, and Ygor, Astor 's as-
sistant. Astor tries on the coffin, loves it. All is perfect as the
Count begins a lofty soliloquy, using words nobody can fol-
low. The witch complains, gets rowdy as she's told to be
quiet. Suddenly the werewolf, late for lunch, departs noisily
through the window. Matters escalate, the witch keeps com-
plaining, and finally they ask her to leave. This triggers a
tantrum, and as she throws spells and fireballs around mad-
ly, Milton faints.

A week later, the damage repaired, a box arrives con-
taining a thank-you note from Astor, who apologizes for his
friends' manners, and hopes the enclosed fee will make up
for it. The box contains a staggering sum of money. Milton is
counting it when a Lovecraftian apparition materializes in his
office. 'A friend recommended you to me," it says. "Cost is of
no importance." And as the creature's choking atmosphere
fills the room, Milton reaches for his pen and begins filling
out the forms.

THE FUNERAL

THE TUNE IN DAN’S CAFE

Teleplay by Gerald Sanford & Garrie Bateson, based on a
short story by Shamus Frazier.

Directed by David Rawlins.

Pernell Roberts (Joe Bellman), Susan Olivier (Kelly Bellman),
James Nusser (Dan), James Davidson (Roy), Brooke Mills (Red)

We don't ask you to believe this particular painting— death's
head hovering over jukebox— but it does point up the all-
inclusive quality of the occult. Phantom spectres can be
found not only in haunted houses, but in places youd least
expect to find them. Places Ifke this. Our painting is called
"The Tune in Dan's Cafe."

Joe and Kelly Bellman, returning from a trip designed to
help salvage their marriage— which doesn't seem to have
succeeded — stop for late dinner at a little place called Dan's
Cafe. They find no one inside. While they wait for service,
Joe tries the jukebox, finding the song that they heard the
first night they met. Their song. He calls it up — but instead
of the one he wanted, it begins playing a country song about
love and betrayal. But the record never gets further than the
line, "words like love, and truth, and goodness— words like
'til death. . ." On "'til death" the record skips, repeats, and fi-
nally stops.

No matter what song he calls up, the jukebox continues
to play the same song, which skips at the same place — as we
suddenly start intercutting with another couple, and unex-
plained scenes of carnage in the same restaurant. The owner
of the cafe, Dan, confirms that the jukebox won't play any-
thing else. He's had it fixed, replaced, had the record removed,
but still it plays only that. It was their song, he says, as we
again intercut back in time. The couple: Roy and Red, so
called because she only wore red dresses.

Roy has plans, wants to get out of town, and is fiercely
jealous of Red. She, on the other hand, is open to flirtation
and talking to strangers. Roy plans a robbery, which he
thinks will get them enough money to get out of town once
and for all. Before the robbery, he sees her in a car with an-
other man, and slaps her. She doesn't like it.

Later, after the robbery, he's waiting for her at the cafe,
playing their song, when the police arrive. He's been set

TWILIGHT ZONE 71

Mm

^***^*W*AV^^*NN*^^^V** ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY

LINDEMANN’S CATCH

up — doubtless by Red. He tries to shoot his way out, but a
hail of bullets riddles the cafe, killing him and shattering the
jukebox in mid-play.

Now, in the present, Dan thinks that perhaps the juke-
box is waiting for her to return, as Roy had been. At that
moment, the jukebox begins playing the song again. Dis-
turbed at this, Joe and Kelly leave Dan's cafe. As they get
into the car, they see another car arrive. A couple emerges:
a man. . .and a woman in red. Quickly, Joe and Kelly head
for the road home.

Meanwhile, behind them, the couple enters the cafe, the
song continuing oh the jukebox, as suddenly there's a scream
from inside, and a gunshot. The record skips at " 'til death."
Then, at last, Dan's Cafe is silent.

LINDEMANN’S CATCH

Written by Rod Serling.

Directed by Jeff Corey.

Stuart Whitman (Lindemann), Jack Aranson (Nicholas), John
Alderson (Granger), Harry Townes (Suggs), Jim Boles (Ben-
net), Ed Bakey (Ollie), Matt Pelto (Phineas), Michael Stan-
wood (Charlie), Anabel Garth (mermaid)

Ladies and gentleman, good evening. We offer up hopefully
salutary, possibly educative, but certainly a few terrifying
little items in this the mausoleum of the malignant. An art-
house full of bogeys, elves, pixies, bad fairies, and a few
daemonic inhabitants, all put together for your pleasure and
titillation in what we call The Night Gallery.

Painting number one, having to do with fishermen and

what they fish for. Or more specifically in this case, a fisher-
man and what he wasn't fishing for. What appeared in his net
one afternoon defies logic, reason, and belief. But there it
was, "Lindemann's Catch.''

A stormy, cold. New England night at the turn of the
century. Suggs, a man who reads cards and tells fortunes
and offers potions in exchange for drinks, is holding forth in
a tavern as Lindemann, a fisherman and captain of his own
small boat, enters in need of a drink and a few hours' peace.
But Suggs goes to him, despite Lindemann's desire for quiet,
offering to read his palm or his tea leaves, perhaps whip up
a little potion.

Lindemann turns on him, enraged. He doesn't like his
life, he has to put up with the fog, and the sea, "and that
leaky ratcatcher of mine," but he doesn't have to put up with
Suggs. He throws Suggs's cards into a spittoon, and follows
up by shoving Suggs's face down there, where he says it be-
longs. Then he strikes Suggs and storms out of the tavern,
with Suggs calling back that he's an evil man, he can't live,
can’t love, can't share.

Lindemann returns to his boat, where his deck hands
are shocked by what they have found entangled in their net
with the day's catch: a mermaid. From the waist up, a beauti-
ful woman; from the waist down, a fish. His first impulse is
to kill it. It's a monster. But she reaches out to him, speech-
lessly imploring him, and something in him responds. Others
from the tavern have gathered around, and an offer is made
to put it on exhibit, charge admission, split the profits. But
Lindemann orders everyone to leave.

Three days pass. Lindemann hasn't put out to sea for
more catch. The deck hands, restless, try to discuss it with
Lindemann, but he is preoccupied, waiting for the doctor.
Upon his arrival, a worried Lindemann explains that she
won't eat. She's sick. The doctor doesn't know what he can
do, she's not human. Lindemann disagrees. She's more hu-
man than most. He speaks with her, after a fashion. Though
dumb, she makes her needs known to him.

The doctor examines her but can only conclude that
she’s been out of the water too long. Her only hope is for
Lindemann to throw her back. She's not meant to be a com-
panion to man. Lindemann won't even consider this — he
keeps her with him because he is lonely, and has at last
found something he can love.

When Suggs hears of this, he goes to Lindemann, and, talk-
ing quickly, offers a solution: a potion that will make a whole
woman out of her. She'll be walking on two legs by dawn.

Willing to grasp at any hope, Lindemann gives her the
potion and goes above to wait. At dawn, he goes back below
decks to where she lies covered with blankets. He lifts one
corner of the blanket and sees a pair of perfect feet and legs.
Ecstatic, he rushes topside, shouting his thanks to Suggs, and
proclaiming that the mermaid is a woman nowl Met by skep-
tical stares, Lindemann calls her to come up and show them.
Slowly, the blanket-covered figure rises, climbs up the steps
to where Lindemann can see her. And he screams at what he
sees.

She emerges onto the deck— revealed now to be a woman
from the waist down, and fish-like from the waist up. Before the
horrified onlookers can react, she dives into the water. Hys-
terical with shock and desperation, Lindemann dives after
her, disappearing beneath the waters.

Later, a funeral ceremony is held aboard the boat, a sin-
gle wreath tossed into the water, and Suggs, unmoved,
tries to find another customer for his readings, potions, and
charms.

72 TWILIGHT ZONE

ROD SERLING’S NIGHT GALLERY ^^^^^wvwwvwvywyv

A FEAST OF BLOOD

Teleplay by Stanford Whitmore, from a short story by Dulcie
Gray.

Directed by Jeannot Szwarc

Sondra Locke (Sheila Gray), Norman Lloyd (Henry Mallory),
Hermione Baddeley (Mrs. Gray), Patrick O'Hara (Frankie),
Barry Bernard (Gippo), Cara Burgess (Girl), Gerald S. Peters
(Chauffeur)

In the general generic area of costume jewelry, note girl and
note expression. Obviously a lady much disturbed by what-
ever little bauble she has recently been the recipient of. Uh —
said sentence improperly ending on a preposition — but this
story ending in a much more deadly note than that. We call
it "A Feast of Blood. "

Henry Mallory arrives at the Gray home to pick up his
date for the evening, Sheila, an attractive woman who is
aware of the effect she has on men. She dates Henry to satis-
fy her mother's desire that she keep her options open, despite
her intention to marry someone else. Sheila doesn't much
like Henry. "He's small and soft and repulsive as a slug." But
he's a monied slug, so the narcissistic Sheila tolerates him.

At dinner, Henry presents her with an unusual gift: a
furred broach that looks like an exotic mouse. It is held tight
in the broach by a gold pin. It's expensive, but Henry is quite
successful, despite his homely appearance. What he wants,
he gets. And what he wants is her. She drops all pretense
and laughs at his ambitions. She is the one thing he will
never have.

He seems unaffected by this, and returns the conversa-
tion to the broach. It's quite rare. It's a form of mouse, an
ancestor to the bat. He removes the pin that fastens it to her
blouse, and it remains, holding on by its prehensile feet,
almost as though alive.

She thanks him for the gift, but insists that this is good-
bye. He drives her home, taking a back road. In the middle
of nowhere, he stops the car and mocks her for choosing an-
other man just because he is more handsome. She storms out
of the car, saying, "I'd rather die than stay with you." It's her
choice, he says, then drives away.

As she begins the long walk back to town, the creature,
free of the pin, moves toward her throat. She pricks her fin-
ger on it, and realizes that it's moved — too late. It hangs on,
and attacks, growing as big as a dog. Moments later, one of
a pair of bicyclists sees something rushing through the night,
"its head black and shiny, like it was covered with blood."
Moments later, they find Sheila's body.

Meanwhile, at a bar, Henry Mallory introduces himself
to a beautiful woman. She is unimpressed by his homely ap-
pearance. When he presents her with a broach, identical to
the other, she accepts it, but explains, "this doesn't mean any-
thing." He smiles. "Of course. It's just that I am compelled —
to honor beauty."

THE LATE MR. PEDDINGTON

Teleplay by Jack Laird, based on a short story by Frank Sisk.
Directed by Jeff Corey.

Harry Morgan (Thaddeus Conway), Kim Hunter (Cora Ped-
dington), Randy Quaid (John)

A dead man splattered on a concrete walk. Not the most ap-
petizing of scenes, not the pleasantest of stories. But, if you're
interested remotely in homey homicides, this may be your

bag. We call it "The Late Mr. Peddington.

Cora Peddington arrives at Conway's funeral parlor, in
search of an economical undertaker. She's making the rounds
to try to cut expenses, a need underlined as she rolls her own
cigarette.

The recipient is her husband, Adam, a wealthy business-
man. It was quite sudden, she explains. She'd forgotten to
mention that repairmen had removed the balcony on their
penthouse apartment. So one morning he stepped out -and
down thirty stories. Conway is appalled . . . and confused. If
Adam was doing well, why the need for her to cut expenses?
There must be quite an inheritance.

There is. But Adam never liked rich widows, and felt
that between death and inheritance a "purgative period
should ensue." Consequently, she must live only on the insur-
ance money for two years. The amount: $2,000. With in-
creases for accidental death, that makes it $4,000 for two
years. So she goes down the list of options she can afford: no
reconstruction, no coffin (a basket will do), cremation rather
than burial ....

Later, Conway's assistant John asks if they got the job.
Conway says that no one underbids him. They got it. Then
why didn't she tell them to collect the body? "She was shop-
ping, John," Conway says. "Shopping. She had to make cer-
tain that under the conditions of her husband's will she could
realistically afford the price of even a cut-rate funeral." So?
"So, now she has to go home and—"

And at that moment, Adam Peddington steps out onto
the balcony that's no longer there, and plummets thirty
stories to the ground. ■

THE LATE MR. PEDDINGTON

TWILIGHT ZONE 73

, rv

CARNIVAL

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47

"It's all right, Lars, it's good meat.
Maybe not like Mama makes, huh? So.
Open your mouth."

The people's eyes, staring, pitying,
a million eyes, and hums of voices in
the colored restaurant. Then a kind of
quiet, like sharp prongs in the Feeling.
In the little Feeling, coming awake.

"Now, so? You are finished. No,
the milk, the milk to make you strong."

Off out of the arena, back into the
movement.

And out into the very heart of the
shining motion.

Lars stopped fighting. He let his
eyes see and his mind fill.

Last one there is a sissy and Father
seated in a small car, bumping the car
into others and howling. First one to
the trestle and the slow circling ferris
wheel with the squealing dots.

Just try and catch me, just try. . . .

"Come now, Lars, we rest."

The horror in the washroom and
out again, feeding the Feeling, sending
it along the spiral. The music bellowing
and even in the little car in tfie black-
ness of the Fun House — movement there.
Sudden lights on painted monsters, cot-
ton bats squeaking along invisible wires.

And then —

Here we go, folks. The experience of
a lifetime. Yah yah hear! See 'em all —
the Frog Man, Queenie the Fat Girl
(three hundred pounds of feminine love-
liness!), Marco the Flame-Eater, yah
yah, all inside, all inside ....

"Come, Lars, after this we will go.
But if it is like last time— you never saw
anything like it. Funny-looking crazy
people. It's good, good."

And, as a special attraction, ladies
and gents, we have Jackie the Basket-
Case. No arms, no legs, but he writes
and plays cards and shaves, right before
your very eyes. Science gave him up as
lost, but you'll see him now. Jackie, the
Basket-Case. And the headless girl, who
defies doctors throughout the universe!
Nurses in attendance! Heah, heah, heah!
Only ten cents, the tenth part of a dollar.

Square canvas flags with strange
pictures on them. A man with feathers.
And in front, high on the platform, a
man with a striped shirt and a cane,
hitting a pan.

"So, we go in."

Lars said nothing. He listened to
all the sounds and how they seemed
like the swift rush of cold wind and
rain across his face. His heart beat and
his blood pounded against his temples.

I'll beat you, Lars ....

Lars felt his chair being pushed
forward. Out of the sunlight and quick-
ly into the dimly lighted interior, he

Lars looked at the
armless , legless
man in the cheap
basket and in one
explosion, the
thought sprang
from the Feeling
and scattered
through his brain.

could see nothing at first. Only what
he had been seeing for hours.

There was the sudden quiet, for
one thing. Nothing to see yet, but like
dropping from a close, hot hay-loft to
freshly watered earth. Damp and cool,
like perhaps a grave.

The Feeling stopped growing for a
moment as Lars focused his eyes. He
wondered where all the people had
gone, what had happened, if he were
back in the silent, unmoving room. The
cold stillness and then the soft mutter-
ing of voices, strange and out of place.

"Here, Lars, don't you see?"

Mr. Nielson ran his hand through
Lars's hair and touched his shoulder.
The chair moved over ploughed ground.

"Papa, what—"

Mr. Nielson giggled no louder than
the other people in the tent.

"Ha, ha! Look, boy, look at the
woman!"

Lars saw the object that Father had
called a woman. The product of mutant
glands, a huge sitting thing with moun-
tains of flesh. Flowering from the neck
down the arms and looping over the el-
bows, dividing like a baby's skin at the
hands; the thighs, cascading flesh and
fat over the legs down to the feet. And
over all this, a metallic costume with
purple sequins attached and short black
hair, cut like a boy's.

"Have you ever seen anything so
big, Lars!"

Lars looked from his wheelchair
into the eyes of the fat lady and then
quickly away from them.

Over the ground. Stopping.

The sign reading The Frog Man,
and four people staring.

"Look! Olihh!"

Shriveled limbs with life sticking to
them. Shriveled, dried-up, twisted legs,
bent grotesquely. And the young man
with the pimples on his face crouching
on these legs, leering. Every few mo-
ments, the legs moving and the small
body hopping upwards.

Lars tried to shake his head. The
Feeling started, from where it had left
off, but it traveled elsewhere now. It
traveled from his mind to his eyes and
from his eyes outward.

"Come, it will be late. We must see
everything. Oh, look, have you ever
seen such a crazy thing!"

Lars leaned his head forward pain-
fully and looked.

The face of a very old man, but
smooth along the creases and over the
wrinkles. Wrinkled hands, thin hair.
An old man standing three feet from
the ground. But not merely small. Every-
thing dwarfed. The false beard and the

74 TWILIGHT ZONE

gnome's cap and the stretched-gauze
wings.

The Feeling went into the eyes of
the midget.

"There, over there! There was no
such last time!"

Over the ground slowly, past the
man with the pictures on his skin, the
black creeping thing, the boy with the
breasts, slowly past these, slowly so the
Feeling could be fed and gathered.

And now, the Feeling reaching across
the tent to the other side, reaching into
the woman with seventeen toes, the
boy with the ugly face, the alligator
girl, the human chicken, reaching and
bringing back, nursing, feeding, iden-
tifying. Identifying.

Then ceasing.

"Lars, look. Never was there such
a thing."

Mr. Nielson's voice was low and
full of deep wonder as he craned his
head over the people's shoulders.

Lars tried one last time to see the
blue of the linoleum, the gray of his
room, all the quiet things his mind had
made so carefully. But his eyes moved.

It was large, made of wicker, padded
and made to look like an egg basket on
the outside. There was in front of it a
square card with writing, which gave
dates and facts, but the card was dirty
and difficult to read. The thing in the
basket lay still.

A knitted garment covered the mid-
section and lower part. Above, the pale
flesh stretched over irregular bumps
and lines, past the smooth arm-sockets
on up to the finely combed black hair,
newly barbered.

The face was handsome and young,
clean-shaven and delicate.

When it lifted, Mr. Nielson and the
other staring people gasped.

In the mouth was a pencil and with
this pencil, the thing in the basket be-
gan to write upon a special pad of pa-
per. The lead was soft so that those
nearby could make out the words, which
were "My name is Jack Rennie. I am
very happy."

Lars saw his father's hands about
his side, lifting and pushing.

"Look, see what it does!"

Lars's body trembled, suspended
above the basket, held in air. Every-
thing trembled and shook, as teeth held
a moving pencil and the pencil made
words. The limbless man thought, it—
he— thought . . . .

The automobile came straight at
Lars, and he saw it now. Saw it speed-
ing over the trestle for him, bellowing
its warning. The brakes screeched in his

head and he saw the car swerve and ca-
reen in the wet road. And then floating
down the trestle, below it, onto sharp,
hard things.

Lars looked from his wheelchair at
the armless, legless man in the cheap
basket and in one explosion, the thoughts
sprang from the Feeling and scattered
through his brain, moving, dancing,
swinging arms, jumping on legs, mov-
ing, moving with all the ecstasy of a
dead child brought suddenly to life.

"It shaves, see, talks, it writes!"

Lars rode his bicycle in the sunlight
down through the fields near the river
and never stopped, for he was never
tired. He rode past laughing people and
waved his arms at children blurring in
the distance. He pushed his young legs
on the pedals and flew past all the things
of the country and then of the world,
all the things best seen from the eyes of
a young boy on a bicycle.

The thing in the wicker basket ceased
to exist. The grinning, gasping people
ceased to exist and Father was someone
sitting in a chair, smoking his pipe.

Lars had reached the crest of Straw-
berry Hill and he lifted his feet, drifting
and floating downward, letting the
wind and rain and sunlight whirl past.

Mr. Nielson gently pulled Lars back
in the wheelchair and rolled silently from
the darkened tent into the afternoon.

The people were sparse. They strag-

gled by hoarse vendors and still rides,
yawning and shuffling.

Mr. Nielson forgot about the tent
and began to talk.

"Well, we go home now. AH day at
the carnival, what, my son? Ah, Lars, I
tell you. Mama should not have stayed
home. Now you feel good, you will be
a fine man and think, eh, Lars?"

Mr. Nielson picked leaves from
overhanging branches as he walked,
feeling good and pleased.

When he got into the car, he looked
at his son's eyes.

"Lars, there is nothing wrong? You
don't look like you feel so good."

Lars was going too fast to hear
Father, the wind was shrieking too
wildly. The green hills turning golden,
the leaves from orange to white, and all
the other boys and girls riding behind
him, chasing, trying to catch him.

He turned, laughing. "Who's the
sissy now, who's the sissy now!"

Mr. Nielson scowled.

"You'll never catch me, you'll never
catch me!"

"What, what is that you say?"

Lars sang into the wind as the chil-
dren's voices grew faint. He waved his
arms and pedaled with his legs and saw
the beautiful hill stretching beneath him.

"You just watch, you just watch!"

The beautiful hill sloping graceful-
ly downward and without an end. ■

"Good heavens, Elaine. . .have you seen the moon tonight?"

TWILIGHT ZONE 75

tV

Beaumont

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 53

light Zone is about people— about human
beings involved in extraordinary cir-
cumstances, in strange problems of their
own or of fate's making."

Though Serling was contractually
obligated to write eighty percent of The
Twilight Zone's scripts himself, he made
sure that the stories he adapted, and
the writers he hired to write original
scripts, maintained the highest standard
of quality. After a brief (and disas-
trous) call for unsolicited scripts, Ser-
ling turned to two writers with proven
experience in the form — Richard Mathe-
son and Charles Beaumont.

Between them, Matheson and Beau-
mont wrote more than forty of the
show's episodes. "Chuck and I just pitched
ideas and then started in writing
scripts," recalls Matheson. "For a long
time, it was just the two of us and Rod.'

As Rod Serling himself recalls, Beau-
mont didn't make a particularly good
impression at their first meeting. "This
was just after [Serling's teleplay] Velvet
Alley had aired," said Serling, "and
Chuck Beaumont, whom 1 didn't even
know, in a very tasteful way— nothing
offensive in the way he did it— said
'Quite honestly, I must tell you to your
face, it's the worst piece of writing I've
ever seen'. " Luckily, it had only a posi-

tive effect on the working relationship
between Beaumont and Serling. "It put
Chuck and me on a very good basis,
because I feel now not only the right
but the obligation to speak to Chuck
honestly. . . ."

Among the most memorable of
Beaumont's Twilight Zone episodes were
"Perchance to Dream," about a cardiac
patient who dreams of being scared to
death by a beautiful woman; "Long Live
Walter Jameson," starring Kevin McCar-
thy as an immortal who is weary of
life; "The Howling Man," about the
Devil imprisoned in a monastery; and
"Printer's Devil" based on Beaumont's
own short story "The Devil, You Say?"

Beaumont is also credited with
several episodes which were written, at
least in part, by other writers, including
"The New Exhibit" (by Jerry Sohl), and
"Number Twelve Looks Just Like You"
(by John Tomerlin). In addition, he
played an important part in the deci-
sion to adapt several stories by George
Clayton Johnson (including "The Four
of Us Are Dying," "Execution," "The
Prime Mover," and "Ninety Years With-
out Slumbering.") Johnson himself went
on to write four teleplays for The
Twilight Zone: "A Penny for Your
Thoughts," "Kick the Can," 'A Game of

Pool," and "Nothing in the Dark." In all,
as a writer, an adapter, and a catalyst
for other writers, Beaumont made a
greater contribution to The Twilight
Zone than anyone other than Rod Ser-
ling himself. And his episodes are ac-
knowledged as among the program's
best work.

The Edge of Frenzy
The summer of 1961 found Beaumont
involved in an explosively controversial
project: the first motion picture to deal
with the volatile problem of Southern
school integration. It was based on his
novel The Intruder, inspired by a 1957
Look magazine article about the efforts
of segregationist John Kasper to sabotage
school integration in Clinton, Tennes-
see. Adam Cramer, the central figure in
Beaumont’s story (portrayed by actor
William Shatrier), is on a similar mis-
sion. He fails, as Kasper failed, but not
before mob violence has taken its ugly
toll, as it actually did in Clinton.

Intrigued by Kasper, Beaumont
packed a suitcase and flew to Clinton to
interview him. "Chuck just got up and
went down there," recalls Matheson.
"Lived there; talked to all of the people
there. It seems to me he got himself a
gun, too, because everybody was really
suspicious about him going around ask-
ing questions."

A year and a half later his novel
was finished. Beaumont was subse-
quently hired to do the screenplay
adaptation for director Roger Corman.
When Corman, whose forte had long
been science fiction/horror, was unable
to obtain studio backing, he finished
The Intruder on an independent basis.
The movie was shot on location in and
near Charleston, Missouri, on a shoe-
string budget of one hundred thousand
dollars, and utilized some three hundred
local townspeople in its cast. Beaumont
went along to oversee his script and to
essay the cameo role of school principal
Harley Paton. The film was never suc-
cessful in general release due to compli-
cations over its controversial nature. It
was later exploited under the misnomer,

I Hate Your Guts, and, later. Shame.

Beaumont would later work with
Corman on several Poe-inspired films,
including The Premature Burial (written
in collaboration with Ray Russell), The
Haunted Palace, and The Masque of
the Red Death. He also worked on such
fantasy film classics as Bum, Witch,
Bum (with Richard Matheson), The
Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm
(with David P. Harmon and William
Roberts), and the Oscar-winning film
The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao.

By now, film and television offers
were flooding in. At times Beaumont
juggled as many as a dozen projects
simultaneously, and would have to farm
the extra work out to his friends.
"Chuck was hyper-energetic," says Mathe-
son. "From the day I met him he was
always hyperactive, always restless.
Had to move. Had to go someplace.
Got to go. I remember him talking
about hating the idea of being asleep.
He even hated the idea of someone see-
ing him asleep. Because sleep to him
was like: I'm not doing anything. I'm
wasting time."

At the peak of his career, Beau-
mont rarely turned down an assign-
ment, and he soon found himself over-
whelmed with writing commitments.
"He was taking on so much work that
he couldn't do it all," says Johnson. "So
he'd farm the work out to his friends —
Ray Russell would be working with him
on a Roger Corman film. Bill Nolan
would be polishing a magazine article,
Jery Sohl and myself would be at home
writing the first draft of a television
script while John Tomerlin was working
on a third. And Chuck would be run-
ning all over town, trying to keep dif-
ferent appointments."

Says Nolan: "Chuck tried to fit a
million things into a spot where you
could fit maybe a thousand. He'd some-
times schedule, say, four meetings with
different people for the same day. And
he'd be late for all of them. So he'd say
to the first person he was meeting, "Look,
I'm running late and I've got to see Ray
Russell. So come along and well talk
on the way.' By the time he got to Ray's
he'd be on short time, and he'd say,
'Ray, jump in the car. I've got to see
Dick Matheson, and well all talk while
we're driving there.' And there would
be whole entourages in the car by the
time he got to the final person. It was
really wild stuff. But he lived this kind
of life at the edge of frenzy all the time."

Nolan, Johnson, and Tomerlin's
sales, at this point, were primarily in
short fiction, and although the short
story market of this time was a healthy
one, their earnings were considerably
less than that of Beaumont's. "Chuck
was always trying to figure a way to get
a little more work than he could do be-
cause he knew we really wanted it;
could really use it," says Johnson, "if it
was something that could be done, that
didn't have to have a personal touch.

"He couldn't share the credit with
you because they wouldn't keep hiring
him if they knew he was forming a
[writing] factory and farming out to his
friends — we people who had not yet ,

succeeded in those circles."

In return for his friends' help,
Beaumont would split the money fifty-
fifty with them. "Chuck was a big suc-
cess," says Johnson. "He always had
something going— an article, a story, a
script. He also had the contacts. Al-
though the rest of us were working,
there was a great envy in us of him. We
all would've liked to have had that."

Though he'd attained a high-level
of creative and financial success in film
and television, Beaumont had often
confided to close friends his desire to
return to novel writing, and, in 1963,
decided to finish Where No Man
Walks — a novel he'd begun in 1957.

But time was running out on
Beaumont.

Remember? Remember?

By mid-1963 his concentration began
to slip; he was using Bromo Seltzer
constantly to cope with ever-increasing
headaches. Friends remarked he looked
notably older than his thirty-four years.
By 1964, he could no longer write.
Meetings with producers turned disas-
trous. His speech became slower; more
deliberate. His concentration worsened.
Meanwhile, his family and friends desper-
ately tried to understand and treat his

symptoms. "Chuck had constant head-
aches," says Nolan. "I can't think of
Chuck without the word 'headache'. He
was always in good spirits and didn't let
the headaches stop him, but it was
something he was fighting all the time."

In the summer of 1964, after a bat-
tery of tests at UCLA, Beaumont was
diagnozed as having Alzheimer's Disease;
he faced premature senility, aging, and
an early death. "The saving grace to it,"
says Tomerlin, "if there is one in a dis-
ease like that, is he was not really
aware, after the very beginning, that
there was anything wrong with him.
When he first began to show strong
symptoms of it, he would have kind of
momentary flashes of great concern, as
though he saw something happening
and couldn't understand what it was.
But it was a fairly gentle process."

Charles Beaumont died February
21, 1967, at the age of thirty-eight. His
last hardcover book was titled Remem-
ber? Remember?, and as Bill Nolan ob-
serves, "there is so much to remember
about Charles Beaumont: [a] midnight
call in California. . .Chuck calling from
Chicago to tell me he planned to spend
the day with Ian Fleming and why not
join them? . . . the frenzied, nutty nights
when we plotted Mickey Mouse adven-

Beaumont

tures for the Disney Magazines . . . the
bright, hot, exciting racing weekends at
Palm Springs, Torrey Pines, Pebble
Beach ... the whirlwind trips to Paris
and Nassau and New York ... the ses-
sion on the set at Twilight Zone when
he'd exclaim, 'I write it and they create
it in three dimensions. God, but it's
magic!' . . . the fast, machine-gun rattle
of his typewriter as I talked to Helen in
the kitchen while he worked in the den
. . . the rush to the newsstand for the
latest Beaumont story. ..."

Charles Beaumont:

WRITING AS THERAPY

"I'm very cynical. I don't believe in
Extra Sensory Perception or polter-
geists or flying saucers. I don't believe
in ghosts, either. What I do believe in
is the capacity of the human mind to
create objects of fear — what is more
frightening, for instance, than
Frankenstein's monster? What we fan-
tasy writers do is create substitutes
for belief.

"All the fantasy writers I know
have a way of dwelling on their own
fears and phobias. A writer spends his
life being his own psychiatrist."

Chad Oliver, who'd met Beaumont
during his stay in Los Angeles while at-
tending UCLA in 1952, recalls him as a
man of enormous vitality and energy. "I
can't remember what it was particularly
that attracted me to Chuck, except for
his tremendous enthusiasm for life."

"Chuck loved fast cars and racing,"
recalls Ray Russell. "He loved music
and comic strips and fine books and
good music. He loved language, our
motley, marvelous English in particular.
But most of all, he loved to write."
And, though much of Beaumont's fic-
tion deals with the macabre, his per-
sonality was anything but morbid. "He
was full of wit and warmth," says Rus-
sell, "and was not ashamed of being a
deep-dyed romantic."

"He was a dear, dear friend," says
George Clayton Johnson. "I think of
Chuck as one of the most influential
men in our lives and someone who was
largely responsible for Nolan, Tomer-
Iin, and myself becoming writers."

Beaumont was, above all, a crafts-
man, a born storyteller who was able
to touch something universal in all of
us, while adding a unique, echoing, in-
definable ambience which was distinc-
tively his. He was gifted with the abili-
ty to entertain us, while showing us the

Chad Oliver: the blue

SUIT WITH THE RED VEST

"Chuck Beaumont had one good suit.
It was a blue suit. And he had a red
waistcoat-type vest that he wore with
it. And when things were really going
badly for him, financially — which was
frequently, as an aspiring writer —
Chuck would put on the suit with the
red vest and would go, as I recall,
down on Sunset Boulevard, into the
fanciest restaurants he could find and
ask to see the manager. He would say,
as only Chuck could, nothing obse-
quious about it, 'Sir, I am Charles
Beaumont. I am going to be a world-
famous writer. If you will give me a
free meal, I will make you famous
some day by putting you in a story.' I
saw him do this on two occasions,
and Chuck told me that in all the
years he pulled this stunt— and he
pulled it a lot— he'd only been turned
down once. One of the things I'd al-
ways admired about him was the style
with which he'd pulled it off. It was
none of this, 'Oh, gosh. I'm down on
my luck; things are terrible.' No. He
was doing them a favor by walking in
and agreeing to eat in their restaurant.
And that's the way he looked at it."

darker, more private parts of ourselves
at the same time. The innovations he
and his colleagues brought to horror
and fantasy are the foundation of those
genres current popularity. Every writer,
artist, or filmmaker who has followed
Beaumont into that night country he
knew so well — from Stephen King and
Steven Spielberg to Clive Barker and
David Cronenberg— owes him an enor-
mous debt.

Although he didn't live to realize
his full potential, he packed more
creativity into a dozen years than most
writers accomplish in a lifetime. By the
time of his death, he'd written and sold
ten books, seventy-four short stories,
thirteen screenplays (nine of which
were produced), two dozen articles and
profiles, forty stories for comics, and
over seventy teleplays.

But though Beaumont is gone, the
magic that he wove in those all-night
coffee shop bull sessions, those drives
to the beach, those solitary hours
behind the typewriter, those rare, quiet
moments at home, is still alive. It's alive
in the family he left behind, the friends
whose lives and careers were touched
and moved by his, and in the words
he wrote that continue to move us
today. ■

78 TWILIGHT ZONE

TZ TELEPLAY
BY

GEORGE

CLAYTON

JOHNSON

The original teleplay first broad-
cast on January 5, 1962

Producer Buck Houghton

Director Lamont Johnson

CAST

Wanda Dunn Gladys Cooper

Harold Beldon Robert Redford

Man R.G. Armstrong

ACT ONE

FADE IN:

1. (STANDARD OPENING)

INTERIOR TENEMENT APARTMENT NIGHT

2. CLOSE SHOT WANDA DUNN

Sleeping lightly in her bed, the covers drawn about her chin.
A soft splash of light illuminates her ancient features. Wanda
is incredibly old; her face seamed and lined with the hatchet
grooves of the years— and yet it is a kindly, gentle face. She
stirs in her sleep.

SOUND: The rasp of cautious footsteps on the pave-
ment outside. This is a basement apartment and the windows
are above the bed. Wanda comes awake, her eyes alert. She
cocks her head, listening.

Again the SOUND of quiet footfalls. They pause beside
the window. Wanda's eyes follow the sound apprehensively.

3. ANOTHER ANGLE THE WINDOW

Several heavy boards are nailed across it. Between the chinks
we see the shadow of a man's legs silhouetted.

Copyright © 1961

4. CLOSE SHOT WANDA *

A look of dread pinches her face.

5. ANOTHER ANGLE

As Wanda quietly pushes back the covers and sits up. She is
dressed in an old-style ugly night dress that covers her from
chin to toes. She looks about the dim room as though taking
a hasty inventory.

6. PANNING SHOT HER POV

We see dusty, broken furniture, sagging wallpaper, a warped
floor. The room is decrepit with age and neglect. In one wall
is a door barricaded with furniture. The windows are criss-
crossed with boards as though to repel invaders. The main
entrance to the room is equipped with a night chain, a heavy
bolt and a lock, all dogged in place.

7. CLOSE SHOT WANDA

Satisfied. Everything is as she left it. And now we watch the
play of expressions on her face as she listens to the stealthy
drag of shoeleather on the pavement. There is a muffled o.s.
(offstage) shout and a sudden clatter as the offstage feet
break into a run. A POLICE WHISTLE SOUNDS, shrill,
urgent. A brace of GUNSHOTS blasts the stillness.

8. WIDER ANGLE

As Wanda fearfully edges out of the bed, fits her feet into
slippers and cautiously moves to the door. She stands rigid,
her expression fearful. More FOOTFALLS from outside,
above. Another GUNSHOT, close, loud. A GRUNT of pain
followed by the heavy, slithering thump of a body tumbling

by George Clayton Johnson

TWILIGHT ZONE 79

% -

NOTHING IN THE DARK

down a flight of concrete steps. The door rattles in its frame
as the o.s. body slams against it. Wanda flinches backward.
She has stopped breathing as sjie listens. A MOAN — a weak
rap at the door.

VOICE (O.S.)

(weakly, a husky whisper)

Help. . . !

(a long pause)

Please — help!

Wanda freezes against the door.

WANDA

(timid)

Who is it? Go away!

VOICE (O.S.)

(in pain)

Please — I've been shot.... Need help!!

Wanda is very frightened. Her withered hand goes to the
night chain and then draws back.

WANDA

Who are you?

VOICE (O.S.)

(the words come very
hard indeed)

I'm an officer— police. Open the door. . . .

(a wracking cough)

Need help.

Wanda's expression is a compound of uncertainty and hid-
eous fear. She makes a decision.

WANDA
(in agony)

You're lying to me. I know you. You can't
fool me.

VOICE (O.S.)

(weak— very weak)

Help. . . .

Wanda blinks uncertainly.

WANDA

(stronger)

You're lying. You're no policeman. Why
can't you leave me alone? I know who you
are.

(a beat)

I know what you are!

Her fear is a naked thing. WHIP PAN TO SERLING sitting
on her recently occupied bed. He looks at her with pity.
SERLING

An old woman living in a nightmare. An
old woman who has fought a thousand
battles with death and always won.

Now she's faced with a grim decision —
whether or not to open a door. And in
some strange and frightening way she
knows that this seemingly ordinary door
leads to The Twilight Zone.

FADE TO BLACK

BILLBOARD
FIRST COMMERCIAL

FADE ON:

9. INTERIOR WANDA'S APARTMENT
ANGLE ON DOOR

As Wanda stands frozen with terror, her back pressed
against the door frame, with only the movement of her eyes
to tell us of her fright. She is listening intently, and when the
VOICE MOANS once again it is all she can do to keep from
crying out.

VOICE (O.S.)

(faintly, weakly)

Help. . . . Won't somebody help. . .?

WANDA

(a terrified whisper)

Go away! I won't listen. Go away.

When there is no further sound from beyond the door, Wanda
slowly relaxes. Muscle by muscle her tension drains from
her. A great sigh. Is it possible that he has gone7 Seeing that
his ruse has failed, has he given up? Quietly her hand goes to
the bolt and draws it. She turns the knob and eases the door
open against the night chain. She peers through the crack in
the door. CAMERA MOVES WITH HER so that we see as
she sees the form sprawled on her doorstep. This is
HAROLD BELDON. With a start she almost slams the door
again but something stays her hand. Beldon's eyes are closed
and he is unmoving. Ready to slam the door at his first
move, she studies his face. He is unconscious. His head has
fallen back so that we can see his face clearly. It is a young,
open face. Though drawn with shock and pain it is a face in-
capable of deception. His lashes flutter with returning con-
sciousness and he moans softly. Surrounded by the hard
concrete walls of the areaway, he looks very helpless and vul-
nerable. Her breath catches in her throat as his eyes blink
open.

BELDON

(weak)

Unless you help me I'm going to die. I — I
don't think I can move.

WANDA

(pleading)

Don't say that! It isn't fair. You're trying to
trick me.

A bewildered look from Beldon. He shifts his arm to gain
leverage in an attempt to sit up. At this slight motion Wanda's
fingers grip the door.

WANDA

Don't move— I'll close the door.

A look of confusion floods Beldon's features. He doesn't
understand what is going on. It is all he can do to retain con-

80 TWILIGHT ZONE

sciousness.

BELDON

What. . .? I've been shot. I'm bleeding to
death.

(the effort to speak is almost
too much for him. After a
moment, he continues)

My name is Harold Beldon. I need an am-
bulance— a doctor. Please— call the hospital.

Wanda's face twists in an agony of indecision. It is possible
that he is telling the truth but she cannot take the chance.
WANDA

I haven't a telephone. I'd have to unlock
the door. You can't ask me to do that. I
don't want to die. You understand? I know
who you are!

(a moan)

Oh, why don't you leave me alone!

Beldon tries to comprehend what she is saying. He under-
stands the words but not the sense. The effort of trying to
stay awake has beaded him with perspiration and his last
strength is ebbing.

10. CLOSE SHOT BELDON

The realization that he is going to die here in this black
cement hole makes his face crumple.

BELDON

(stunned)

You're not going to help me. For some rea-
son I don't understand . . . you're going to
let me die.

(overcome by the horror of
the thought, he searches for
the why of it)

You're afraid of me— yes, that's it. But
why7 The uniform ... the gun? No — some-
thing else.

(a shudder goes through him
and he gasps with pain)

Hurts! Oh, God, it hurts!

11. CLOSE SHOT WANDA

She squeezes her eyes closed and presses her face against the
cold door frame. A terrible pity for the man in pain pulls at
her.

WANDA

Stop it— stop it! Don't torture me. It isn't
fair!

12. CLOSE SHOT BELDON

Painfully he puts his hand inside his coat. It comes out
stained with red. He looks dazedly at the blood.

(brokenly)

I'm bleeding. . weak. . .can't move. . .
hurts. . . .

(his eyes glaze, he sags and
the breath seems to go out
of him)

His hand trails limply on the pavement and is still.

13. CLOSE SHOT WANDA

Shaking with emotion as she struggles with the conflicting
urges — fear for self and compassion for another.

_ BY GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON

WANDA

It isn't fair. It isn't fair.

Slowly her hand goes to the night chain -draws back. She
looks at o.s. Beldon.

14. CLOSE SHOT BELDON

Eyes closed -helpless -groaning softly, near unconsciousness.

15. CLOSE SHOT WANDA

A flood of pity. In a blind urgency she unlatches the chain.

16. WIDER ANGLE

As the door opens and Wanda peers out. After a careful sur-
vey of the surrounding area she moves to Beldon, her fear of
him still evident in her posture. Slowly her hand moves
down to his shoulder, hovers there for a moment— then
touches. She pauses as though listening to an inner music
After a brief interval her face relaxes.

WANDA

(wonderingly)

I'm still alive ....

And now, briskly for one her age, she sets about the task of
getting him inside. Fortunately she is not too frail for the
undertaking. Once across the doorsill she closes the door
and re-latches it. She leaves Beldon on the floor to return
with a pillow, a blanket, and a small medical kit. Safe once
again inside the house, her face has softened. With tender
hands she sets about ministering to him.

DISSOLVE TO:

17. ANGLE ON SOFA DAY

Early morning sunlight filters through the chinks in the win-
dows. Beldon has been transferred to the sofa, his head
propped with pillows, his br#ss-buttoned coat and holster
draped over a nearby chair. He has recovered amazingly and
his face is no longer pale with pain. Wanda enters scene
humming and crosses to him. She adjusts the Markets and
leans back to look at him.

WANDA

There— you got to keep warm.

BELDON
(grateful smile)

You should get some rest. I feel much
better.

(shifts position and winces)

When the doctor gets here he'll take me off
your hands.

(at expression on her face, he
pauses, coming to realization)

You didn't call the doctor.

She evades his eyes nervously.

BELDON (CONT'D)

But why not?

18. ANOTHER ANGLE FEATURING WANDA
WANDA

I— I can't.

(after -a pause, in a rush)

I don't have a telephone.

BELDON

Couldn't you go to one of the neighbors?
WANDA

They aren't any. They all moved away.

TWILIGHT ZONE 81

NOTHING IN THE DARK

Trucks came and took away thgir furniture
— first one and then another. Even if I
could call a doctor somehow I couldn't
take a chance and let him in. Don't you
see? He could be him.

BELDON

(perplexed)

Him?

WANDA

(nodding)

He has many names— The Dark One— The
Grim Reaper— Mr. Death.

(sees his look of disbelief)

I know he's out there. He's been trying to
get in. He comes to the door and knocks.

He begs me to open the door. Last week
he said he was from the gas company. Oh,
he's clever. After that he claimed to be a
contractor hired by the city, but I knew
who he was. He said the building was con-
demned, that I'd have to leave. I kept the
door locked and he went away. He knows
that I'm on to him.

BELDON

(trying to understand)

Mr. Death? A person? Someone like you
or me? Someone with arms and legs and a
face7

Wanda nods with a shiver of fright. She can see that he
doesn't believe her.

WANDA

It does sound crazy.

(with terrible intensity)

But it's true! I know it is.

BELDON

People die all over the world. China —

Africa — Europe — at this very instant peo-
ple are dying. How could one man be in
all those places at once?

The sanity and logic of the question tears her apart. She
doesn't know the answer; all she knows is what she feels.
WANDA
(a cry)

Don't ask that! I don't know! Maybe
there's more than one. Maybe —

(she can't continue)

As she shakes with dry sobs, Beldon's eyes fill with pity.
BELDON

Don't— don't cry. I don't want to hurt you.

He reaches his hand up toward her. She slumps to her knees
beside him.

BELDON

There — please — there.

He awkwardly pats her shoulder; her crying subsides.
WANDA

At first I wasn't sure. It was a long time
ago. I was on a bus. There was an old
woman sitting in front of me knitting—
socks, I think. There was something about
her face — I felt I knew her. Then this
young man got on. There were empty
seats but he sat down beside her. He didn't
say anything, but his being there upset
her. He seemed like a nice young man.

When she dropped her yam, he picked it

up. Right in front of me he held it out to
her. I saw their fingers touch. He got off at
the next stop.

(a beat)

When the bus reached the end of the line,
she was dead.

BELDON

You said yourself she was an old woman ....
WANDA

But I've seen him since then— many times.

19. CLOSE SHOT WANDA

WANDA (CONT'D)

I've seen him in crowds; I watched for
him. Every time someone I knew died, he
was there. Once he was a young soldier—
a salesman — a taxi driver— someone you
wouldn't notice unless you were watching.
I wondered why I could see him and no
one else could, and then 1 knew. It was be-
cause I was getting old and my time was
coming. I could see some things clearer
than younger people.

20. TWO SHOT FEATURING WANDA

BELDON

(going along with her)

But if you know what he looks like, why
be afraid? You could avoid him.

WANDA

His face is always different. I couldn't be
sure.

BELDON

(trying to show absurdity of
idea)

When you go out— couldn't he touch you
then if he wanted to?

WANDA

(firmly)

I never go out.

BELDON

(doubtfully)

Never?

WANDA

(points to barricaded windows)

I haven't for years.

BELDON

(shocked)

What about food?

WANDA

A boy delivers it. I leave the money and a
list and I always wait till he's gone before
I unlock the door.

BELDON

(outraged)

How can you live like this?

21. CLOSE SHOT WANDA

WANDA

If I don't live like this, I won't live at all. If
I relax my guard for even a moment, he'll
get in somehow.

(reflectively)

I didn't always live like this. I was young,
once. People said I was pretty. I lived out

82 TWILIGHT ZONE

BY GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON

in the sunlight. People said I'd spoil my
fine complexion but I didn’t care. I loved
outdoor things.

(the light dies in her eyes as
she looks about her)

I lived out in the sunlight.

She sees a patch of sun on the floor near her knee. She puts
out one of her hands to form a cup for it. Her hand blazes
with the sun.

WANDA (CONT'D)

I've always hated the cold and the dark.

I’m old. I've lived a long time but I don't
want to die.

(she shivers)

I'd rather live in the dark than not live at
all.

22. CLOSE SHOT BELDON
Reacting. He is deeply moved.

BELDON

Easy. No one is going to hurt you. We're
alone here and there's no one at the door.

You need rest.

(he shifts again and pain
autographs his face)

And I — I need help.

23. TWO SHOT

Wanda sags tiredly. She xises and moves to a nearby chair.
There is a sudden noise at the door -the thud of heavy heels
descending the concrete steps. There is a staccato knock on
the door.

24. CLOSE SHOT BELDON

Reacting. Surprised. A quick look at Wanda and then at the
door. His eyes swing back to Wanda with a deep look of
concern.

25. CLOSE SHOT WANDA

Icy with fear- eyes wide and apprehensive. She has stopped
breathing.

then another. Now she is at the door. With trembling fingers
she checks the night chain to assure herself it is fastened. An-
other demanding KNOCK. She jerks with the impact of the
sound. Her face is pale as she slowly draws the bolt.

29. CLOSE SHOT BELDON

He is affected by her evident terror. He, too, is drawn bow-
tight. He leans forward. In spite of himself he stares at the
door.

30. CLOSE ON WANDA

As she turns the knob -slowly- slowly. The bolt rasps in the
silence. She pulls the door open an inch at a time. Suddenly,
shockingly, a pressure from outside shoves the door open the
length of the night chain and a FACE appears at the opening.

31. CLOSE SHOT THE FACE

Filling the screen framed by the door and the jamb. It is a
hard face.

26. CLOSE SHOT BELDON

For a brief moment he is caught up in her terror. He shakes
himself back to reality.

32. CLOSE SHOT A FOOT

Wedging the door open, blocking the door so that it cannot
be closed.

27. ANOTHER ANGLE FEATURING WANDA
DOOR IN B.G.

She cannot move.

WANDA
(a gasp)

No!!

Again the sharp KNOCK.

28. ANGLE WIDENS TO INCLUDE BELDON

BELDON

There — it's probably nothing to fear. You'd
better answer it.

This is the last thing in the world that Wanda wants to do.
She is convinced beyond reason that Mr. Death is standing
on her doorstep. With a tremendous effort of will she takes
a step toward the door.

BELDON

That's right— go ahead.

She looks over her shoulder in despair. She takes another step.

33. CLOSE SHOT WANDA

Falling back in terror. She stares.

34. HER POV THE NIGHT CHAIN

The force has loosened the attachment to the door frame. One
of the screws is missing and the rest are loose. The attach-
ment has pulled part-way free of the ancient wood.

35. CAMERA ZOOMS INTO A CLOSE-UP WANDA

36. CLOSE SHOT BELDON

Startled concern.

37. CLOSE SHOT THE FACE

An angry expression.

MAN

I'm sorry, lady, but I have my orders. I
can't fool around any longer.

He tries to push the door from between them. The night chain

TWILIGHT ZONE 83

!v

NOTHING IN THE DARK

gives way with a splintering sound. The door swings wide.

38. ANGLE TO INCLUDE WANDA MAN

He takes a step into the room. Wanda cannot move. She is
stricken into immobility by her terror. The man takes anoth-
er step. With a wild flutter of eyelids, she slumps to the floor.
The man reacts with surprise and bends over her. His hands
poise over her.

39. CLOSE SHOT HIS HANDS
As they touch her shoulders.

FADE TO BLACK.

BILLBOARD

SECOND COMMERCIAL
ACT II

FADE IN:

40. INTERIOR APARTMENT CLOSE SHOT
WANDA . DAY

She is unconscious on the floor. The man bends over her, his
expression unreadable. He takes her wrist and feels for a
pulse.

41. ANGLE ON BELDON

Watching intently. Apparently the man has not seen him yet.

42. ANOTHER ANGLE MAN WANDA
BELDON IN B.G.

The man hunkers down and picks Wanda up. He carries her
to the bed, props up her head with a pillow, smooths back
her hair.

43. CLOSE ON WANDA
Still and pale.

44. CLOSE SHOT MAN
Looking down on her.

45. TWO SHOT

Wanda stirs, a frightened moan, her eyes open. It takes her
a few seconds to orient herself. Abruptly she realizes what

has happened.

MAN

Easy, lady.

Wanda tries to pull away from him.

MAN (CONT'D)

Just lie quiet till you get your strength
back.

The man takes a bandanna out of his pocket and swabs at
his forehead.

MAN (CONT'D)

You gave me quite a scare when you caved
in like that.

Wanda looks down at herself.

WANDA

(wonderingly)

And still I live ....

She looks at the man, confused.

MAN

(apologetically)

You got to understand, ma'am. I don't get no
pleasure out of busting down doors, but
you don't seem to savvy how important
this is. I got a crew and equipment coming
in an hour to pull this tenement down.

(he looks about the room
with distaste)

Begging your pardon, but it's long over-
due. I'm surprised it's still standing.

He has moved aside so that she can sit up.

WANDA

You really aren't Mr. Death. . .?

MAN

I don't know what you're talking about.

All I know is I got a contract to demolish
this row of buildings. Everybody else
moved out long ago. Until the other day I
thought this building was deserted. I seen
them windows boarded up and I figured
you moved when the rest of them did.

Wanda gives him a stricken look.

WANDA

You want me to go outside? To leave here.

But I can't. Don't you see?

The man shakes his head at her obstinacy.

MAN

(patiently)

You were notified months ago, right? I'm
just trying to do my job. These buildings
were condemned by the city and I'm the
one who's got to tear them down.

WANDA

How can you?

MAN

(exasperated)

The building is old — run clown. I can see
how you could get attached to it and not
want to see it destroyed, but when a build-
ing is old and unsafe it's got to come down
to make room for new buildings. That's
life, lady. The old has to make room for
the new.

(a change of tone — softer)

People ask me why I do what I do — de-
stroy things, but in a way I'm not a de-
stroyer at all. I just clear the ground so

84 TWILIGHT ZONE

other people can create. In a way I help
them do it.

The man shrugs self-consciously.

MAN (CONT'D)

Look around. It's the way things are. Trees
fall and new ones grow out of the same
ground. Animals give way to new animals
and even people step aside when it's time.

46. CLOSE SHOT WANDA

She shakes her head stubbornly.

WANDA

I won't.

She looks o.s.

WANDA (CONT'D)

(with fright)

The door, . . .

47. HER POV THE DOOR

It stands open, sunlight streaming onto the warped floor.

48. ANGLE ON WANDA

As she gets quickly to her feet and goes to the door. She
swings it closed and reaches for the bolt. The man has fol-
lowed her and as he sees her intention he puts out a restrain-
ing hand.

MAN

(firmly)

No need for that. What's the sense locking
a door that won't be here in an hour? If
you got any possessions you want to keep,

I'd move them out of here. I'll help you.

When she hesitates, his tone hardens.

MAN (CONT'D)

I been trying to go easy but if you insist
on staying here I'll have to call a cop.

Please cooperate, lady.

At the mention of a cop, a thought occurs to Wanda. Her
confusion vanishes.

WANDA

Of course. . . .

49. ANOTHER ANGLE TO INCLUDE BELDON

He is propped up on one elbow regarding them. Wanda
crosses to him followed by the man.

WANDA
(to Beldon)

Explain to him. Tell him the reason I can't
go out there. You'll help me, won't you?

Beldon looks up at the man.

MAN

(confused)

What are you doing? Who are you talking
to?

He looks down at Beldon blankly.

WANDA

Mr. Beldon is a policeman. He'll explain it
to you.

MAN

Mr. Beldon? Are you all right, lady?

(he eyes her suspiciously)

I tried to be as gentle as I could.

WANDA
(to Beldon)

Please tell him.

_ BY GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON

The man looks from Wanda to Beldon. He begins to edge
away. He pauses at the door.

MAN

I m sorry, lady, but if you're still here when
the crew arrives. 111 have to call a cop.

He looks back at the couch and shrugs. He exits. Wanda
looks curiously at Beldon.

WANDA

Why didn't you help me? I thought you
understood.

She turns away and suddenly pauses. A hideous thought has
occurred to her.

50. CLOSE SHOT HER FACE

An abrupt transition from mild annoyance to sickening terror.

51. CLOSE SHOT BELDON

He knows the jig is up.

52. TWO SHOT

As Wanda whirls. Her breath hisses between her teeth
WANDA
(accusing)

You!! He looked right at you and didn't see
you . . . !

(realization)

No!!

Beldon lowers his eyes. He swallows. He didn't want it to
happen like this.

BELDON

(gently)

Look in the mirror, Wanda.

53. CLOSE UP WANDA *

She turns her head toward her cracked mirror.

54. WANDA'S POV TO MIRROR

She can see the couch on which Beldon lies. It is empty.

55. MEDIUM SHOT

AS WANDA TURNS BACK TO BELDON
WANDA
(shrill horror)

You tricked me!

(disbelief)

You tricked me. . . ! It was you all the time.

BELDON

(softly)

Yes — I tricked you.

WANDA

(rigid)

But why? Once I let you inside you could
have taken me anytime and yet you didn't.

You acted— nice. You made me trust you.

Beldon nods.

BELDON

I had to make you understand.

Confused silence.

BELDON (CONT'D)

(soft)

Am I really so frightening? Am I really so
bad?

Wanda cocks her head. She isn't sure she understands.

TWILIGHT ZONE 85

NOTHING IN THE DARK

BELDON (CONT'D)

You've talked with me, confided in me.

Have I taken advantage of you? Have I
tried to hurt you?

Wanda reacts, puzzled. Her initial terror has subsided a bit.
What is he talking about? She has penetrated his secret and
yet he continues to act as before. She relaxes her guard a
trifle.

BELDON (CONT'D)

It's not me you're frightened of— you un-
derstand me. What frightens you is the
unknown. What frightens you is the land
from which no traveler returns.

Wanda's face shows a flare of apprehension.

BELDON (CONT'D)

(reassuring)

You needn't be afraid.

He rises from the couch— all signs of his recent weakness
gone— and moves toward her. His face is relaxed and friendly.
WANDA
(shrinking back)

But 1 am afraid.

BELDON

The running is over and it's time to rest.

Give me your hand.

He holds out his hand.

WANDA
(a cry)

But I don't want to die!

BELDON

(soothingly)

And you didn't want to live. You struggled
against it till you were blue and the doctor
had to slap you firmly to make you breathe.

And you did. You grew accustomed to it
and found it good. It was natural and right
and now it is done.

(pleading)

Trust me.

Wanda backs against the wall.

WANDA

No! No. . . !

His hand trembles before her. She looks at it with horror.
Then she looks at his eyes.

56. CLOSE SHOT BELDON
His eyes quiet— steady— friendly.

57. CLOSE SHOT WANDA
Her confusion is stark and pitiful.

58. TWO SHOT TIGHT

BELDON

(warm)

Mother, give me your hand.

Looking at him, seeing the quietness in his eyes, her expres-
sion softens. Her hand trembles toward his. She tenses her-
self for a shock as her hand touches his. Nothing happens.
She looks questioningly at him.

BELDON

You see? No shock. No engulfment. No
tearing asunder. What you feared would
come like an explosion is like a whisper.

What you thought was the end — is the
beginning.

Beldon smiles warmly and turns away.

WANDA

But when will it happen? When will we go?

Beldon turns toward her and points o.s.

BELDON

Go. . .7 Look!

59. CLOSE SHOT WANDA
Awe and wonder.

60. ANGLE ON COUCH HER POV

On it we see the body of Wanda herself. Her hands are
crossed on her chest in an attitude of peace, her eyes closed,
her face serene.

BELDON'S VOICE
We have already begun.

61. CLOSE SHOT WANDA

Reacting. A note of excitement.

62. CLOSE SHOT BELDON

Smiling, at ease.

63. TWO SHOT

He holds out his arm gallantly. She timidly takes it. They
turn toward the door.

64. FULL SHOT (SILENT)

The ugly room. In background we see Wanda turn to Beldon
eagerly. They are in animated conversation like old friends as
Beldon opens the door at the far end of the room. The
LIGHTS go down in the ugly room as they pass through the
door into the white, bright sunlight beyond. The door cuts a
blazing hole in the blackness.

SERLING'S VOICE

There is nothing in the dark that wasn't
there when the light was on. Proven in
part by this brief excursion through the
strange geography of The Twilight Zone.

SLOWLY FADE TO BLACK
THE END ■

86 TWILIGHT ZONE

TZ3: Differing Visions

THE ZONE

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 24

Twilight Zone, I find I am strangely un-
sure what to say. It is, I suppose, in-
dicative of the melancholy that comes
with the conclusion of any season of a
television series. The preceding year-
plus was a mad, wonderful parade of
deadlines and frantic writing and non-
stop work.

Then, one day, it just stops.

The only question now is whether
it will pick up again anytime in the
near future.

It's my understanding that MGM/
UA, desiring the thirty episodes we did
only to fill out its syndication package,
and currently in the throes of a finan-
cial and management crisis, may not
choose to commission any further epi-
sodes, despite TZ3' s success in the rat-
ings. (Their interest, it seems, is in long-
term syndication, not short-term ratings.)
Now, it's possible that this attitude may
change (miracles, I'm told, do occur)
but at this time, it seems that our best
bet for another season — call it “TZ3.5",
if you will — is to get back on CBS.

Failing that, this could well be the
final run for The Twilight Zone, until
some uncertain day, years down the
road, when someone at the network de-
cides that the time has come to once
again open the door to the wonders
and eccentric residents of the Twilight
Zone. George Clayton Johnson told me
a few weeks ago that he believes it will
come again, someday. He says that the
concept is eternal, that the fires of im-
agination that bum at the heart of the
Twilight Zone cannot be long extin-
guished. Somewhere, somehow, some-
day, it will return.

I hope he's right.

Because whether I'm a part of it or
not, a part of the Twilight Zone is now
in me. Spending time in the Zone over
the last year-plus has this tendency to
make one believe in miracles, and the
remarkable power of the human being
singular to create magic from dust, to
elevate the human condition to a state
of dignity and self-realization, to say
something of value in a medium chroni-
cally undervalued.

One way or another. The Twilight
Zone will survive. Because where it is,
those who would erase it, those who
come armored in suits and sober sensi-
bilities and bottom-line perspectives,
cannot enter.

It was a heck of a time.

It was one wild ride.

And I'm honored to have been a
part of it, to have shared in its magic
by simple proximity.

Thank you, and goodnight,
from. . .The Twilight Zone. ■

After reviewing the article "Return of
the Zone'' [December 1988] we feel you
owe it to your readers to present a more
balanced view of the internal workings
of the show, particularly in the critical
development period.

If one were to take the article at
face value, one would assume that TZ3
should be called the "J. Michael Strac-
zynski Show." While Joe may be a good
writer and story editor, we beg to differ
with his view.

Let us begin by saying that the de-
velopment of the show was, through-
out, a team process, as mandated by
the Executive Producer Mark Shelmer-
dine. As story editors on an equal foot-
ing with Straczynski, we brought a lot
to that process. We co-wrote the writer's
bible, known as "The Vision," with
Straczynski, based on Shelmerdine's orig-
inal draft. In addition, we wrote several
highly praised episodes, and were inti-
mately involved in setting the show's
tone and direction.

In his article, Straczynski made
reference to us as writers "whose back-
grounds were primarily in sitcom writ-
ing and who were eventually let go."
We resent the implication that our writ-
ing and contribution to the show as
story editors were in some way lacking
and that we left the show under a cloud.
Nothing could be further from the truth.

When the term of our contract came
to an end, we were reassigned by Mark
Shelmerdine to assist in the development
of another television show. We are still
employed by London Films in that ca-
pacity, and, are happy to report that as
recently as October 7, 1988, we were
still doing last - minute rewrites on TZ3
scripts currently in production.

Paul Chitlik
Jeremy Bertrand Finch
Los Angeles, CA

/. Michael Straczynski had this re-
sponse. — Ed.

On the issue of the series bible "Vision,"
the log of meetings and recorded drafts
on file contradicts Finch and Chitlik.
Our first meeting on this issue was Oc-
tober 13, 1987. I arrived at that meeting
with a twelve-page bible, which I had
written entierly by myself, based on a
one-page note from producer Mark Shel-
merdine given to me when I was first
hired. No input by them whatsoever
had been made into that draft. At the
request of the producer, I shortened the
bible (again without their input) and

delivered the revised draft on October
23. Finch and Chitlik asked to review
their contribution to that draft (as
reflected in the drafts available at the
office) which amounted to two sen-
tences, one of which was, "The magic
should come in early." That, and that
alone, is the extent of their involvement
in the writing of the series bible.

The script they mention editing on
October 7, 1988, was one written by
two friends of theirs, which the produc-
er and I had already decided to jettison.
They continued to edit it strictly on their
own, out of a desire to revive their
friends' script for personal reasons. Re-
garding their claims that they were sim-
ply "transferred," anyone familiar with
television can testify that you aren't
just "transferred" off a going series in
the middle of production in order to de-
velop a purely speculative project. They
were not "transferred." The producer's
direct, verbatim comment to me was,
"They're not working out; I'm going to
have to let them go." Any subsequent
arrangement was due to the producer's
laudable desire not to leave them finan-
cially high-and-dry.

Finally, it is worth noting that Finch
and Chitlik wrote only five scripts, the
minimum number which the producer
had to purchase under their contract. I
insisted that my contract require only
one script assignment. If I got more, I
wanted it fo be because I earned them,
and for no other reason— and my name
appears on eleven episodes. It's hard to
determine where they derive the "highly
praised" part of their statement. If they
are referring to outside reviews, only
one of their scripts has aired as I write
this, to absolutely no reviews what-
soever. The only reviews of the show,
quoted in an earlier column, were in
direct response to an episode written
by me and Haskell Barkin ("The Curi-
ous Case of Edgar Witherspoon").

I do, however, strongly encourage
viewers to watch the remaining four
episodes by Finch and Chitlik ("The
Trunk," "Stranger in Possum Meadows,"
"Father and Son Game" and "Room
2426") so that their contributions to the
show can be weighed on their own mer-
its. It is said that failure is an orphan,
and success has many fathers. But in
the final analysis, claims and counter-
claims are more or less meaningless, as
are testimonials or articles written by
me or anyone else. What endures is the
judgment of viewers on the quality of
the episodes, individually and collec-
tively. . .which is exactly as it should be.

J. Michael Straczynski
Los Angeles, CA

TWILIGHT ZONE 87

BY THE NUMBERS

As we've come to expect, Hollywood
will offer us a rash of sequels in the
next several months. Sigourney
Weaver, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis,
and the whole crew will be back for
Columbia's Ghostbusters II: The Last
of the Ghostbusters (due in July).
William Shatner has tried his hand at
directing Star Trek V: The Final Fron-
tier (scheduled for release June 9),
which he decided to make without
the light-hearted — and sometimes
heavy-handed — camp of its predeces-
sor. You've probably already seen at

A TALL TALE: Eric Idle and company
in Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures
of Baron Munchausen. Coming
soon— yeah, that’s the ticket—
real soon.

least the trailer for The Fly II (I Was
a Teenage Insect?) starring Mask's
Eric Stoltz, as the kid who crawls out
of his cocoon, and Spaceballs's Daph-
ne Zuniga. Fright Night II, with more
credible monsters than number one
but not as many chuckles, was re-
leased by N.C. /Vista in February.
Robocop II should be out from Orion
sometime this fall. Halloween V is
scheduled for release in October, of
course, although I wish they'd put
this Michael guy to rest already. But
on an exciting note, Harrison Ford
and Sean Connery should make a
fabulous team in Indiana Jones: The
Last Crusade (scheduled for May 24).
Connery plays Indy's dad.

FASHIONS IN FANTASY

In the wake of Willow, it seems fan-
tasy film mongers might finally be
ready to give the old quest epic a
new turn, or to look on the book-
shelves for inspiration. The Wolves of
Willoughby Chase (not yet scheduled
for release by Atlantic) is the film ver-
sion of Joan Aiken's wonderful
Grimm-like children's novel, starring
Stephanie Beacham (villainess ex-
traordinaire of Colbys fame) as the
evil stepmother figure. Angelica
Huston stars in Witches (due in May
from Warner Brothers), directed by
Nicholas ( The Man Who Fell to Earth )
Roeg and based on Roald Dahl's novel.
Other fantasymongers are going for
new angles on old themes — like
witchhunting with a time -travel twist,
in New World's Warlock (due in
May). This film will have some splat-
ter, a lot of darkness, and a reason-
ably solid cast: Gothic's Julian Sands
as the evil seventeenth-century war-
lock, Withnail and I's Richard E.

Grant as the witch-hunter, and Lori
’( Footloose ) Singer as the love interest.

And at last Terry ( Monty Python's
Flying Circus, Brazil ) Gilliam's The
Adventures of Baron Munchausen,
which we told you about ages ago,
and which may be the longest-delayed
fantasy film on record, is coming to a
theater near you. It was released in
Germany to moderate success and
should be here in March. And speak-
ing of off-the-wall genre flicks, check
out Young Einstein (released in Febru-
ary), afWarner Brothers film, pro-
duced, directed, and written by an
Australian comic star named Yahoo
Serious (seriously!). Also look for
How to Get Ahead in Advertising
(now playing), a comedy in which
Warlock's Richard Grant grows
another head as a result of a nasty
skin condition.

THE WRITE STUFF

Some of the print writers we know
are giving Tinseltown their best shot
-with varying results. After wran-
gling with 20th Century Fox a couple
of years back over the film version of
his novel Millenium, John Varley (see
his story "Just Another Perfect Day"
on p. 26 of this issue) said a
vehement good-bye to Hollywood.
The film, starring Kris Kristofferson
and Cheryl Ladd, finally has been
scheduled for April release.

We hear cyberpunk-meister William
(Neuromancer) Gibson's script for the
third Alien film (not yet scheduled) is
a real corker. Also Kathryn Bigelow
(Near Dark ) is scheduled to do Gib-
son's New Rose Hotel (a cyberpunk
story first published in Omni), after
she wraps Vestron's new cop movie
Blue Steel.

"Splat packer" David J. Schow is
writing for the TV series Freddy's
Nightmares. Also look for many fun-
ny writer cameos in The Laughing
Dead, a comedy gore flick produced
by Somtow Sucharitkul (aka S.P.
Somtow), in which Ed Bryant gets
crushed by a bus.

^ SANDS OF TIME: Gothic’s Julian
Sands plays a dapper- but-nasty
century-hopping villain in Warlock.

© 1989 NEW WORLD ENTERPRISES

▼ THE FINAL FRONTIER? William
Shatner directing a Klingon in
Star Trek V. But is it really the
last hurrah?

■EPING UP WITH THE
NESES: Indiana Jones and the
st Crusade— Harrison Ford and
an Connery play “hunk and son.’

989 LUCASFILM LTD.

© 1989 PARAMOUNT PICTURES CORP.

r -

4

WET AND WILD

Director John Cameron and producer
Gale Ann Hurd are hard at work on
The Abyss (set for July 4th release).

It promises to be the best of a new
wave of aqua-monster sf/horror
films. As in The Terminator and
Aliens, Cameron will set the visual
tone of the film with his neat designs
for sets, weapons, and whatever other
futuristic doo-dads the story de-
mands. But get out your water wings
for the other "wet films" this year.
Deep Star Six (released in January), a
hare-brained undersea Alien clone
complete with tacky prehistoric lob-
ster, should have deep-sixed itself at
the box office by now. There's more
hope for MGM's Leviathan (released
March 17), which appears to be a
fishy clone of John Carpenter's The
Thing with high production values. It
stars Peter Weller (Robocop) and
Richard Crenna.

INNER TUBE

The news from the small screen
looks promising. For those of you who
love fifties-style sf revamps like War
of the Worlds, J. Michael Straczynski
is working on a new made-for-syndi-
cation version of V for Warner
Brothers. I hope the lizard-people still
get to eat those chocolate rats and
tarantulas. And more aliens are com-
ing to TV. Word is out that there's a
syndicated Invasion of the Body
Snatchers series in the works.

On the classy side of TV syndica-
tion, Shelley Duvall (producer of
Showtime's Fairie Tale Theater) is
working up a Nightmare Classics an-
thology series for Showtime. She'll be
dramatizing a few Poe stories and
several other famous horror tales. Joe
Straczynski is adapting Robert Louis
Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde for the
series.

^ BOY GENIUS: Australian comic
Yahoo Serious writes, directs, and
stars in Young Einstein, a wacky,
down-under, historical fantasy.

© 1989 PARAMOUNT PICTURES

▲ MATERIAL GHOULS: Fred

Gwynne (alias Herman Munster)
stars in Pet Sematary. Madonna-
video-alumna Mary Lambert
replaced George Romero ( Night
of the Living Dead) as director of
King’s latest tilt at Hollywood.

99 TWILIGHT ZONE

A CYBER-SPLAT!: Vincent Klyn has
flesh ap-peel as Cyborg’s leading
body-disintegrating pirate.

■

*

wSxsiitbm#

COMIC RELIEF

On the heels of Roger Rabbit, a
passle of cartoon and comic book
heroes, from Bullwinkle's badguys
Boris and Natasha (an Orion release,
starring Sally Kellerman), to Batman
and Spider-man, will soon be blazing
across the silver screen. I'm sure all
you mulch mavens will be glad to
know that the Swamp Thing ( Return
of the Swamp Thing, no distributor
yet ) will be back, complete with
Louis Jourdan as the reanimated and
cloned Dr. Arcane. (Old villains -
and actors — never die.)

While we write this, Warner
Brothers' much-awaited Batman, star-
ring Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson,
and Kim Basinger is still in production,
having experienced much technical
difficulty. Script changes have
abounded on this film. We hope they
work it out soon — they've promised
to release it in July.

Here's one big scoop for us anima-
tion lovers: Steven Spielberg has
made an agreement with Warner
Brothers to produce/direct some
new cartoons, featuring the
studio's classic characters. More
power to him (as if he needs it).

And Speaking of power, even though
the Revlon Corporation bought
Marvel Comics, thanks to a Cannon/
New World Pictures agreement, you
can still expect to see Spider-man and
Captain America movies in future
months. Another Cannon project,
Masters of the Universe II, got
scrapped after they built the sets and
arranged for big-time special effects.
They found a "cyber-splat" script, re-
named it Cyborg, and four weeks
later. Cannon had a movie. With its
flesh-dissolving pirates and non-stop
fight sequences. Cyborg might make
a good Saturday-night rental once it
gets to video. (Which will be soon; it
was released in February.) |

◄ CREEP FROM THE DEEP: Amands
Pays and Peter Weller try to slay
a suspiciously Thingy-\ooking
thing in Leviathan.

TWILIGHT ZONE 91

© 1988 UNIVERSAL PICTURES

SCREEN

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

DON’T WORRY, BE PASSIVE: They Live’s aliens just want obedience, and
perhaps some skin cream.

ness to a level that a contemporary son-
of-a-bitch — one toughened as a child by
a technology that brought him visions
of other children being slaughtered in
Vietnam as he ate his TV dinners —
would be able to understand.

Unfortunately for the movie, the
first of the Christmas Spirits is so much
the best of them all, that the others,
while quite good, are a bit of a let-
down. The Ghost of Christmas Past is
played with lethal joy and sublime vi-
ciousness by dinky Carol Kane (I tell
you, she was named for this movie!),
all dolled up in a frothy little fairy
dress and wearing teensy, filmy wings
just like White Rock girl on the soda
water bottles.

She wears a mincing, wincey little
smile, and crinkles her eyes up ever so
jolly, and the first thing she does to
Murray, to indicate she feels his mode
of life does not live up to her expecta-
tions of loving humanity and Christian
forgiveness, is to sail across the room
on her fluttering wings and give him a
resounding wallop in the genitals. She
thus demonstrates, without ado or
bothersome subtlety, her basic schtick,
which is that while she may be light as
a feather, have the bones of a tiny spar-
row, and skin of a near translucent
paleness sprinkled with sparkly stars,
she hits with the authority, and the
same sickening thud, of a Mike Tyson.
The whole routine between her and

Murray— who plays off her with a
snarling skill also lovely to behold — is
something I will treasure and chuckle
over for many Christmases to come. If
you find your brotherly love slipping a
little, friend, take a tip from your kind-
ly old reviewer and see this prime ex-
ample of moral instruction.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is
played with obvious enjoyment by
David Johansen (aka "Buster Poindex-
ter") as a skillfully scruffy cab driver.
While his ectoplasmic Fifties cab with
its cruddy Christmas decorations may
not be quite up to sweet, dear little
Carol (nothing is quite up to our Carol),
it may be the second-best thing in the
movie as it whizzes through darkness
and delivery trucks with equal abandon.

In defiance of convention, the
death's-head skull of The Ghost of
Christmas Future is not hidden — the
movie is firmly dedicated to stamping
out understatement whenever possible
— and gets bigger and bigger and BIG-
GER. The Marley-style ghost is played
by John Forsythe (whose voice is, of
course, perfect for a television execu-
tive) in a mouldy golfer's outfit (he died
in retirement on the links) with, frank-
ly, rather disappointing dead-person
makeup. Considering the generally high
level of funny horrific effects in the
movie. I'd have expected the makeup
artists to have a little more imaginative
fun with old Marley's rotting face.

But, hey, is that in the Christmas
spirit7 Go see the movie, gentle read-
ers, even if it's got a few kinky little
drawbacks, and, like, try to love your
fellow man, okay? It's that or a holly
stake through the heart next year,
friend.

Pull Down the Shades

Old John Carpenter keeps hammering
them out, and some are better than
others. They Live (Universal) is not one
of his best, but it does have a promising
start and the first gropings of a fine
paranoid film.

The notion he's playing with is the
comfy old idea that this mess we're in is
really not our fault. You see, it isn't that
we've been greedy and thoughtless and
stupid and all that stuff. That isn't why
the world is almost busted and our genes
are bent out of whack— it's these here
dam thangs, folks, these terrible, inhu-
man critters from outer space that have
put us in our present position. It's
those devils made us do it!

Of course, true to the tradition of
this sort of story, poor, old, innocent
mankind-at-large has no idea it's being
preyed upon. But this film has a little
group of human rebels who know the
truth. They're plotting to free the rest
of us and, wonder of wonders, (and here's
the cute point and the only justification
for the movie) have developed sunglass-
es that enable their wearers to see the
alien entities for what they are, namely
corpsey-looking creatures with bulging
metal eyes.

A wandering construction worker,
the very big Roddy Piper, comes across
a set of these glasses and, after seeing
how ugly and all-pervasive the aliens
are, determinedly goes after them until
he discovers the rebel group. Things go
almost exactly the way they would if
you left off reading this article and
spent five minutes or so dreaming up
the scenario yourself, except that you'd
have to write in an endless (supposedly
funny) fight between Piper and his
equally huge pal Keith David, and end
it with a really remarkably unconvinc-
ing wrap-up— even for this genre. Actu-
ally, I'm sure you're far too smart to
come up with an ending as dumb as the
one in the movie, so I'll break my usual
policy of not giving away the ending
and tell it to you in order to save you
whatever exorbitant price the theaters
and/or cassette renters are charging in
your area. (If you want, you can stop
here and try to figure it out, sort of like
a crossword puzzle, before reading on
and seeing if you can actually dream as
poorly as a Hollywood hack.)

92 TWILIGHT ZONE

It turns out that the aliens have a
technology so far in advance of ours
it's like to make you sick with envy.
They even have a wonderful gadget
that transports you instantly to any
place in the universe you want to go —
there's a swell glimpse of it in action
with a huge, ringed planet hanging in
the sky. And it's presented so prettily
by Carpenter that I decided then and
there, to hell with the humans; I'll join
up with that other bunch! These self-
same high-tech aliens manage to main-
tain their fiendish disguise and look
pretty, just like us, only because of one
solitary solo little tinsy gadget in the
whole entire world, a kind of sparky
lava lamp mounted all by itself and ex-
posed to the elements on the roof of a
building. Well, wouldn't you know it!
Big old Rowdy Roddy Piper comes
across it entirely by accident and shoots
it with his last bullet and -that's it,
that's all it takes! — the aliens are re-
vealed to us for what they are, so now
we can destroy them and live sensibly
like we wanted to do all along. Totally
awesome, right? I just know, if you
played the game, that your ending had
to be better than that.

Sympathy for the Cenobites

A while back I reviewed Clive Barker's
Hellraiser in this column and opined
that he had made a very promising
start as a director of scary movies. I
stay with that, but, after seeing Hell-
bound: Hellraiser II (New World Pic-
tures), I am afraid that I must regretful-
ly add that he has unfortunately followed
that up by making a noticeably bad de-
but as a producer.

In Hellhound, which is, indeed, an
attempt to carry on with the gory
events commenced in Hellraiser, Barker
has entrusted his story to one Peter
Atkins, screenwriter, and one Tony Ran-
del, director. (Not the winsome TV
comic, by the way. I had a brief mo-
ment myself of wondering how a fellow
like that had ever managed to get him-
self involved in a project like this!)
Friends, Barker's faith in them was ill-
placed, and his attention to their doings
either minimal or misguided, because
nearly everything that could have gone
wrong in Hellraiser (and which was,
very much to his credit, narrowly
avoided by Barker) does go wrong in
Hellhound, and in precisely the ways
you were happily relieved to see it not
going wrong in the original effort.

I suppose the most obvious con-
trast between the two Hellraisers is in
the heavy-handed humor which was, in
the original, neatly sardonic and dry in

order to offer quiet and skillful counter-
point to the wash of blood all about. In
Hellhound, an initial attempt is made
to deliver the same kind of wit, but it
falls apart with increasing speed, and it
soon degenerates into such a shambles
that in the end we are treated to the
odd spectacle of increasingly bizarre
monsters delivering Henny Youngman
jokes. (The whole thing's not unlike
watching a cheap car collapsing into sil-
ly fragments as it rolls down the side of
a hill.) It doesn't quite get to; "Take my
tentacles . . please!" They don't get that
good, actually -but they reach for it.

There are some promising aspects
to the film, but they are, each and every
one, thoroughly sabotaged in the end.
Kenneth Cranham, for instance, is
quite good at the start playing a slick,
purring, deeply perverted doctor who
has managed to get himself a sanitari-
um full of victims to play horrible
games with. (This includes a bunch of
really super crazies kept in a row of
hidden cells in the basement next to the
furnace.) But he is soon buried under
so much makeup that almost anyone
would do (and maybe did, who knows?),
and his lines decline into the above-
mentioned one-liners as well. Really
quite a pity.

The horrible creatures are over-
done from the start. In the original
there was a nice lean sparseness about
them, and they were photographed
hunched in lots of menacing shadow. In
this unfortunate sequel, however, we
see them spread-eagled in bright light
like bugs. (I suppose the effects people
were so proud they didn't want you to

miss a thing.) They are fat and sprawl-
ing and out of shape. They don't scare
you, as they are supposed to do during
the first part, and they don't make you
laugh, as they try to do in the last part.
(At least , I think they are trying to
make you laugh.)

The worst thing about the film, the
really unforgiveable bit, is what it does
with the truly gruesome notion of the
Cenobites, a race of absolutely horrid
entities who can get into your world
and/or pull you into theirs and whose
whole, sole purpose and delight in life
is to hideously torture you with the ab-
solute latest and most trendy S&M
devices until you have been turned into
dinky bits of gory flesh. Hellhound
takes these hideous creations and turns
the concept around and, by God, actu-
ally sentimentalizes it, hard as that may
be to believe, by revealing that they are
not a ghastly, ghoulish race at all, but
just a bunch of poor, misunderstood
humans who made the perfectly under-
standable mistake of getting interested
in those tricky little puzzle boxes, poor
dears. What with one thing leading to
another, before they knew it, there they
were looking ugly with all those nails
in their faces and suchlike, and finding
themselves torturing all those people -
not that they really wanted to do it
deep down inside, of course, and, real-
ly, isn't it a shame?

So I would suggest, most earnestly
and sincerely, that Barker get out of the
producing business and back into the
directing business, and, for heaven's
sake, stop listening to all that bad ad-
vice! ■

HOOKS AND BLADDERS; Hellhound’s Kenneth Cranham Ceno-bites off
more than he can chew.

TWILIGHT ZONE 93

© 1988 NEW WORLD ENTERPRISES

ft

>. ' It

BOOKS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

0-380-75500-9). Here are ten new sto-
ries plus four classic reprints, all horroc
tales taking place in hot, sweaty climes.
The reprints include such work as Avram
Davidson's "Where Do You Live, Queen
Esther?", a concise, concentrated tale of
benign voodoo, aggressive white ignor-
nance, and duppy death.

The originals range over a wide
spectrum, from Gene Wolfe's "Houston,
1942," an eerie story of twisted child-
hood, to Charles Sheffield's "Dead Meat,"
an adventure of lust and murder set in
Borneo that is a lineal descendant of
the sort of men's magazine tale Harlan
Ellison and many others used to write
in the Fifties. Steve Rasnic Tern contrib-
utes "Grim Monkeys," a parable of chil-
dren lost, set in Venezuela. Pat Cadi-
gan's "It Was the Heat" is a lush, sweaty
tale of the sensuality and decadence
twining about a female executive visit-
ing New Orleans. Other contributions
include stories by Brian Aldiss, Ian
Watson, George Alec Effinger, and others,
as well as poetry by Robert Frazier and
Bruce Boston. The uncreditqd cover
painting is particularly notable, evok-
ing, as it does, the same attractive air
of class as the publisher's Latin Ameri-
can fiction series.

2am Publications is an ambitious
fledgling small press in the Midwest.
They have just published a chapbook
called Wishes and Fears by David Starkey
(2am Publications, P.O. Box 6754, Rock-
ford, IL 61125-1754, $4.95, 48 pp„ ISBN
0-937491-01-2). This perfect-bound trade
paperback contains an original novelette
about a young boy who lives with his
embittered and abandoned mother, loves
animals, and one day discovers a wound-
ed, chained griffin off in the woods.
Befriending the unpredictable griffin
leads to grim results as the legendary
beast starts taking a stem accounting of

those who have given the human boy
grief. Although the book starts well in
vintage Bradbury territory, it unfortu-
nately mires itself in increasingly pe-
destrian writing. Hard to tell whether
it's author or publisher who believes
that "strided" is the past tense of stride,
and that a "wheel barrel" is synonymous
with wheelbarrow. I don't mean to pick.
What's more serious is that the poten-
tially very human and affecting story of
a boy who loves all helpless creatures
funnels too rapidly into an artificially
forced ending where the frisson — rather
than generating from the artful placement
of the writer's story elements — comes
instead from a clumsily structured oh-
my-God-so-fhof's-what's-going-on revel-
ation, involving the reading of a con-
venient book. Mr. Starkey demon-
strates real promise, but perhaps he is
not yet ready for a book all to himself
where any weakness is more likely to
call attention to itself.

If David Starkey evokes a bit of
Bradbury as Wishes and Fears start off.
Brad Strickland conjures a wonderful
Michael Bishop-style landscape in Shad-
owshow (Onyx Books, $3.95, 372 pp.,
ISBN 0-451-40109-3). Shadowshow is
set in the smalltown Georgia of 1957.
Sputnik's up there and folks are wor-
ried. In the little town of Gaither, yet
another burg with a hideous secret, the
mysteries stranger, Athaniel Badon, comes
to town to buy the boarded-up State
Theatre. The previous owner now en-
dures an institution where author Strick-
land, in a wonderful cameo of cinemat-
ic hell, describes the inner content of
the character's catatonia: "How can they
know that he watches insane, horrify-
ing, disjointed Hopalong Cassidy movies
in his head all the time now?" If all the
writing in this novel were that brilliant,
this review would be one long rave.

Sadly, while Shadowshow is pleas-
ant enough, it mostly affords the plea-
sure of the overly familiar. I've seen all
this before. So have you. It's not terri-
bly mysterious why the malevolent Mr.
Badon's back in town. The device of the
midnight show where movie patrons
get to preview the (usually) awful acts
they're going to commit doesn't come
through as either all that fresh or even
terribly integral to the plot. Maybe that's
the problem: focus. All the elements of
the big, best-selling, point-of-purchase
horror bonanza are here. Shadowshow' s
got atmosphere. It's got a serviceable
but unsurprising plot. It's got one of
those lengthy cast lists that looks as
long as the passenger manifest for the
Titanic Too many of the characters
have labels pasted on their foreheads.

Labels like "Lunch." Too often the gloss,
the perfunctory, the superficial is the
brush used to letter that label. Andy
McCory, the duped Renfield-like hu-
man minion of the nasty Mr. Badon,
mostly twirls a metaphorical moustache,
save for one scene toward the end when
he seems genuinely affected by the
death of his child. This is not to say
that the other characters are intrinsical-
ly dull or even uninteresting. It's just
that they seem constantly struggling for
air. Fresh air. This is another one where
you strain and root for the author all
the way; then finally pack it in and go
out to the kitchen where you find the
power's gone off, the refrigerator's de-
funct, and the beer's turned all warm.

Finally, if you don't have a copy of
J.G. Ballard's new story collection.
Memories of the Space Age (Arkham
House, $16.95, 216 pp., ISBN 0-87054-
157-9), your book collection — and your
life — is incomplete. Got that? Memories
is a perfect gem of a book, from the Max
Ernst jacket and J.K. Potter interior il-
lustrations to Ballard's octet of post-
modern fictions about the dulling of
edges, the bitter thwarting of expecta-
tions, and the dying of the dream as
the shattered fantasies of humanity's
conquest of space litter the parched
sands of Cape Canaveral. Ballard
shows us devastated human wreckage
lurching across the mindscapes in sto-
ries as old as "The Cage of Sand"
(1962), as recent as "The Man Who
Walked on the Moon" (1985). By turns
melancholy and obsessed, Ballard deals
us resonances from a deck of archetypes.
There is adventure here indeed —
emotional, intellectual, and aesthetic
Don't concern yourself that Memories
of the Space Age will probably not be
endorsed gleefully by the L-5 Society. ■

94 TWILIGHT ZONE

TERROR

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20

ing Dead, an audio dramatization from
Simon & Schuster, is less successful.
The narrator speaks infrequently, and
when he does it is during the most
climactic parts of the story. He has lines
like ". . .exposing things that never
should be seen by man." (I know I want
to see them, and I assume you do,
too.) The performers have a tendency
to overact. I have seen people listen to
this tape and quiver with suppressed
giggles and excitement at the tacky pre-
sentation, eating up every ridiculous mo-
ment. So if you're the type who enjoys
laughing at good, trashy horror, you'll
love Night of the Living Dead.

Now for the contemporary stuff.
All the novels you've waited for in print
are coming out on audio cassette almost
as fast. The first part of Stephen King's
Dark Tower series. The Gunslinger, is
still on the stands, and part two. The
Drawing of the Three, was released in
January by New Audio Library. The
Dark Tower novels are all full-length
readings by King himself. Just think:
six hours and sixteen minutes of King's
distinctive nasal voice. Actually it's a
treat to hear an author read his or her
own work, and King does a fine job
with this series.

For those of you who love Stephen
King, his tapes are almost everywhere.
The classic tales from Nightshift are
available from Random House. Gramma
is a good one to buy if you like child-
hood fear, or if you like scaring little
children. The Mist is probably one of
the best King tapes around; it's com-
pletely dramatized in "3-D" sound. When
you're wearing earphones the three-
hundred and sixty-degree sound repro-
duction creates a spacial reality similar
to the way your ears really hear—
above, below, front, back, right, left.
You can imagine how deliciously dis-
gusting some horror effects are in 3-D
sound. I didn't buy it at first, but after
1 heard a good ten-second 3-D stran-
gling, I was sold.

3-D sound is especially fitting for
The Mist. The producers strive for total
realism, and it works. People scream
and you can hear their voices fading
away in the distance. Creatures fall
from ceiling to floor, and you can actu-
ally hear them splat below. And the
mist itself. . .is alive, it creeps, crawls,
and slithers. What created this unnatu-
ral fog? The top secret government op-
eration? Perhaps. It doesn't matter what
caused it, all that matters is getting out.
You and dozens of others are trapped in
a supermarket, alone with a raving reli-
gious freak, hungry children, a love
interest— and tentacles. You won't last

long inside, but outside is the mist,
represented by a chilling audio sound
effect. You can feel it all around, heavy,
cold, and breathing ....

Random House offers Annie Rice's
tales of the undead: Interview with the
Vampire and Queen of the Damned. Si-
mon & Schuster has V.C. Andrews's
thriller Flowers in the Attic, the story
of the perfect American family's plunge
into a fairy tale-gone-mad. Also from
Simon & Schuster is Dean R. Koontz's
Lightning. This one will appeal to you
folks who like a taste of science fiction
in your horror. ("The first time light-
ning strikes, it saves a life The sec-

ond time lightning strikes, the terror
starts. . . . The third time lightning
strikes, hell breaks loose.") What en-
sues is a suspenseful chase across the
boundaries of time.

Clive Barker is also available on
tape. In fact. Barker reads his most fa-
mous work. The Hellhound Heart -a
tale of Hell and of the people who come
to discover that dreadful place as a re-
sult of the unbearable ennui they feel
existing on earth. Earthly pleasures just
aren't enough for these folks, and nei-
ther are earthly pains. This is the tale
that evolved into the films Hellraiser
and Hellhound: Hellraiser II. If you en-
joyed the films, I have a suspicion you
will appreciate the tape even more. The
tape includes some rather graphic and
disturbing scenes that provide an extra
ripeness to The Hellhound Heart. The
Cenobites are not quite as hip as they
were in the films: their skin is gnarled
and their garb is less like that found in
a death-rock club. But on tape. Barker's
Hell becomes more sticky and damp
than it was in the films, and more hor-
rifically decadent.

Another story of Hell from Barker
is The Damnation Game, an abridged
narration available from Books on
Tape. It abounds in soul collecting,
mind control and all that good stuff. By
far the best sound effect I heard was on
the Barker tape of The Inhuman Condi-
tion, available through Simon &
Schuster: A man graphically hits the
pavement after a fourteen-story fall,
along with hundreds of severed hands.
Try doing that on the big screen. Get
out your earphones for this one!

That's just a sampling of the hor-
rors available on audio. A larger selec-
tion is listed at the end of this section.
Since this sort of "dark" horror is so
compelling, I have one piece of advice
for you. Take your time and work slow-
ly through the tapes. Start with one
you can handle before testing the limits
of your endurance. Bon voyage! ■

SKIFFY

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21

admit that since audio fiction reaches the
ears, it ought to be appealing to them.
A good audio should be able to make
you ignore the shriek of metal on met-
al. So argued my media kid, who has
been spoiled by CD sound.

When I listened to the first tape,
the train wasn't too crowded, so my
intellectual side was dominant. It chose
to begin with the author-narrated tapes
because, it reasoned, they should most
closely reflect the author's work.

The Writer’s Voice

I put the banquet scene from Frank
Herbert's Dune in the tape player and
scanned the "liner notes," written by the
author. He selected the banquet scene
because he felt it best conveys the polit-
ical theme of his novel. Though I agreed,
it seemed to me that the excerpt would
be baffling to anyone discovering Dune
for the first time. Headphones on, I
smiled knowingly and probably looked
very thoughtful. Herbert's hard conson-
ants and intense drone made the piece
delightfully biting and witty. The men-
tal calisthenics at the Atreides dinner
table unfolded like a picture book. The
media kid was entertained by most of
it, and the intellectual felt enriched.

Then I tried Theodore Sturgeon's
"The Fabulous Idiot," a story from his
novel. More Than Human. Again, both
personas were happy. The intellectual
loved heading the lush texture of Stur-
geon's language in his gentle, uninflect-
ed voice. And although the kid was
tired of the hiss on these author-nar-
rated tapes, she thought the fairy-tale
atmosphere was really neat. The next
time I pulled out my headphones for a
listen, it was eight-forty-seven on some
middle-of-the-week morning. I was one
of far too many human sardines on the
stone-still R train. The media child was
really antsy. So I tossed her some upscale
candy — Douglas (The Hitch-Hiker's
Guide to the Galaxy) Adams, reading
his new genre hybrid, Dirk Gently 's
Holistic Detective Agency. I giggled
and guffawed all the way to work—
which was only slightly embarrassing
on the subway, where wackiness is pret-
ty normal. Adams has a wonderfully
sardonic Monty Python-esque delivery,
which makes his fabulously improbable
concepts as believable as the evening
news.

On a sunny Saturday train ride to
my_ parents' abode in New Jersey, my
resident intellectual ruled; she ap-
proached Isaac Asimov's Foundation's
Edge, read by the man himself, with
quiet reverence. But when it was over,
the TV twelve-year-old complained. It's

TWILIGHT ZONE 95

SKIFFY

not that Asimov isn't a wonderful racon-
teur, but he is from around these parts r
and his rich New York accent made it
hard for me to escape from the stench
of the Meadowlands and into his epic
of galactic politics. Even the aesthetic
perfectionist objected; the form — the
sound of his words — didn't seem suited
to their content. Guiltily, I reach for an-
other Asimovian effort. The Gods Them-
selves, narrated by Gale Garnett. In
surprise, the media kid woke up and
pulled out her sentimental hankie.
Asimov's squooshy energy-eating alien
fighting to save the sun from supernova
really touched my heart. Why? Well, the
alien was involved in a perfectly messy,
perfectly human love triangle.

After hearing the author-narrated
tapes, the intellectual purist was resting
easy, feeling that audio could indeed be
a safe place for sf. But the junk-food
junkie kid was ready for— you guessed
it— her next twenty-minute fix of enter-
tainment. Maybe, she thought, the dra-
matizations would be more like Star
Trek, with actors and maybe some mu-
sic or even cool sound effects. While
she was busy contemplating this idea,
though, the sneaky intellectual snatched
up a classic

The Sounds of Science

It was H. G. Wells's The Time Machine
— primaeval science fiction. The profes-
sor in my head got nostalgic I pressed
"play." And frowned. And began to
chuckle. The tape started with electron-
ic music— pulpy stuff like something
out of Forbidden Planet. The narrator
and actors began, speaking in that upper-
crusty Brit accent John Cleese and Com-
pany love to spoof. Then there was this
cello riff sending me to foggy Victorian
London. But then, as the Time Traveler
sped into the future, the electronic mu-
sic and the overacting zapped me right
to the chilly plastic set of Space 1999.
When the tape ended, I felt guilty for
laughing. A classic shouldn't be campy.
The smarty-pants purist returned, tsk-
tsk-ing at the media kid, who snapped,
"Oh, yeah7 Take this!" and shoved a hi-
tech tape into the machine.

Here it was, my first taste of true
"state-of-the-art" audio, Isaac Asimov's
brainchild , Robot City (written by poor
Michael P. Kube-McDowell, whose name
on the box is nearly microscopic). Its star,
Peter MacNichol ( Sophie's Choice),
sounded a little like Mark Hamill. (Ro-
mantic sigh from the kid.) But most of
all, the kid was in sound-effects ecstasy.
Laser cannons blasted; robots clanked
toward me; turbo lifts whirred down
into the bowels of a space complex;

spaceships whistled and hummed through
the void. ("Hey, they can't really do
that," admonished the intellectual, but
the kid was having too much fun to lis-
ten.) And this tape, I thought, was only
the first in a series. The kid can't wait

for the next one. My only complaint
was that the evil alien had a vaguely
Russian accent, throwing glasnost to
the wind. Even so, the couch potato kid
was psyched for more, picked out vol-
ume one of The Omni Audio Experi-
ence, and flipped it into the tape player.

As you might guess from the title,
this particular tape was set up in a
magazine format. It includes a Ray
Bradbury story from The Martian
Chronicles, 'And The Moon Be Still as
Bright" ("Gosh-wow," said the kid), and
a Bradbury interview. Both halves of
my brain went right for the story. And
rose up to heaven. My resident intellec-
tual remarked upon the fact that every-
thing — special effects, music, acting,
and narration was done subtly and with
great respect for Bradbury's poetic style.
The media kid just oohed and aahed at
the yummy new-age music, which made
fantastic pictures flash in my head. The
intellectual enjoyed the interview, but
thought, if these people can make au-
dio fiction so well, why do anything
else?

The next Omni audio volume had
Arthur C. Clarke's "Rescue Party" on it.
In amazement, the mushy media kid
pulled out the hankie again. A Clarke
story that makes you cry? Never hap-
pened to me before. The sound effects
and the music, the excellent acting, all
built a vivid landscape in my head,
thrilling the kid. Then came the part of
the story when humanity did, after all.

find the gumption and good sense to
save itself. This was it, I thought, wip-
ing tears from my eyes, the reason 1
love science fiction. I dared the other
subway travelers to stare at me. I was a
nerd — and proud of it.

My didactic purist was feeling ma-
ternal; she patted the sobbing child on
the head, wondering if all this emotion
was too much for her. Knowing that
Arthur C. Clarke is usually more nuts-
and-boltsy, the intellectual decided to
try another Clarke tape to calm the kid
down. It was Random House's 2061:
Odyssey Three. Although this presen-
tation lacked the sound effects of the
Omni cassette, the intellectual enjoyed
herself, and the child was soothed by
the transitional synthesizer chords. And
as an added bonus, Frank Langella nar-
rates this tape! My romantic media kid
loved him in Dracula (love isn't quite
the right word); he could probably sell
her anything with that velvety voice.
Langella also knows how to convey sci-
ence fiction's sense of wonder. 2061 had
just enough auditory sensuality to evoke
the material's strange settings. Still, the
way I felt about 2061 was nothing com-
pared to my reaction to the last tape.

In the Beginning Was the Word

It was J.R.R. Tolkien reading his own
works. The Hobbit and the Fellowship
of the Ring. Okay, I know this isn't
science fiction, but the kid couldn't re-
sist listening to it. And for giving in to
her childish impatience, my internal in-
tellectual was rewarded with a vivid,
wondrous aesthetic experience. I'd like
to talk more about the Tolkien tape
here, but such a discussion will have to
wait for another column. Suffice it to
say that Tolkien brought me back to
what the art of storytelling is all about:
the power of the word to paint pictures,
to impart compelling, archetypal tales.
The tape proved to both of my perso-
nas that the spoken language alone can
have its own magic, its own music and
"sound effects." But what prose it has to
be, and what a voice the author/nar-
rator has to have to impress the media-
saturated kid in all of us.

It is inevitable that as more publish-
ing companies produce fiction on tape,
they will use sound effects to cover up
weaknesses in stories, just as movie
makers use special effects these days.
Still, since audio is a growing medium,

I hope its producers will continue to ex-
plore all of its sensual qualities and still
keep my media-junkie self saying "Gol-
ly Gee!" But both the media kid and the
intellectual snob will vouch for this: You
can't beat the punch of a good story. ■

96 TWILIGHT ZONE

DIMENSIONS OF SOUND

To help you enter the audio dimension,
we've listed a selection of some of the more
interesting horror and sf recordings current-
ly available. If you don't see what you're
looking for here, write to the publishing
companies for their catalogues or call them
to order. You'll find the numbers and ad-
dresses at the bottom of this page.

HORROR

Classics

Bierce, Ambrose: An Occurrence at Owl
Creek Bridge; Edited by Jonathan Katz;
Performance by Eartha Kitt, James Gunn
[CA]

De Maupassant, Guy: Was it a Dream? [LL]
Jacobs, W.W.: The Monkey 's Paw and The
Interruption; Performance by Anthony
Quayle 1CA]

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Haunter of the Dark
(abridged); Performance by David
McCallum [CA]

Poe, Edgar Allan: The Fall of the House of
Usher and Other Works; Performance by
Basil Rathbone [CA]

Poe, Edgar Allan: The Pit and the Pendu-
lum and Other Works; Performance by
Basil Rathbone [CA]

Poe, Edgar Allan: The Masque of the Red
Death and Other Poems and Tales of
Edgar Allan Poe; Performance by Basil
Rathbone [CA]

Shelley, Mary Wollenstonecraft: Franken-
stein (abridged and fully dramatized)

[SA]

Shelley, Mary Wollenstonecraft: Franken-
stein (unabridged) [BT]

Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Performance
by Anthony Quayle [CA]

Stoker, Bram: Dracula [SA]

Modern

Andrews, V.C.: Flowers in the Attic; Perfor-
mance by Dorothy Lyman [SS]

Bloch, Robert: Psycho [LL]

King, Stephen: Dark Tower: The Gunslinger

[NA]

King, Stephen: Dark Tower: The Drawing
of the Three [NA]

King, Stephen: Gramma [RH]

King, Stephen: The Mist (in 3-D sound);

Fully dramatized [SS]

King, Stephen: The Monkey [RH]

King, Stephen: Nightshift [RH]

King, Stephen: Skeleton Crew [RH]

King, Stephen: Stories from Nightshift [RH]
Koontz, Dean R.: Lightning; Performance
by Peter Marinker [SS]

Rice, Anne: Interview with the Vampire;
Performance by F. Murray Abraham
[RH]

Rice, Anne: Queen of the Damned; Perfor-
mance by Kate Nelligan [RH]

Romero, George: Night of the Living Dead;
Fully dramatized [RH]

Cutting Edge

Barker, Clive: The Damnation Game; Per-
formance by Clive Barker [RH]

Barker, Clive: The Hellhound Heart; Perfor-
mance by Clive Barker [SS]

Barker, Clive: The Body Politic (in 3-D
sound); Performance by Kevin Conway
[SS]

Barker, Clive: The Inhuman Condition; Ful-
ly dramatized [SS]

Straub, Peter: Koko; Performance by James
Woods [SS]

Winter, Douglas E., editor: Prime Evil: A
Taste for Blood; Performance by Ed
Begley, Jr. [SS]

SF

Dawn Age

Pioneers of Science Fiction: (Includes H.G.
Wells's The Time Machine, fully drama-
tized; Arthur C. Clarke's The Sentinel, a
simple narration; and Jules Verne's 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea, fully dramatized)
[SA]

Verne, Jules: foumey to the Center of the
Earth (abridged); Performance by James
Mason [CA]

Wells, H.G.: The War of the Worlds; Per-
formance by Leonard Nimoy |CA]

Grand Masters

Asimoy Isaac: The Gods Themselves [RH]
Asimov Isaac: Foundation's Edge (abridged
w/music); Performance by Isaac Asimov
[CA]

Bradbury, Ray: The Illustrated Man; Perfor-
mance by Leonard Nimoy [CA]

Bradbury, Ray: The Small Assassin; Perfor-
mance by Ray Bradbury [CA]

Simak, Clifford: 'Aesop'' from City; Perfor-
mance by Clifford Simak [CA]

Sturgeon, Theodore: "The Fabulous Idiot"
from More Than Human; Performance
by Theodore Sturgeon [CA]

Clarke, Arthur C.: Childhood's End [RH]
Clarke, Arthur C.: Rendezvous With Rama
[RH]

Heinlein, Robert A.: The Green Hills of
Earth and Space Jockey [RH]

Heinlein, Robert A.: The Cat Who Walks
Through Walls; Performance by Robert

Vaughn [SS]

Herbert, Frank: Battles of Dune; Perfor-
mance by Frank Herbert [CA]

Herbert, Frank: Dune: The Banquet Scene;
Performance by Frank Herbert [CA]

Modern

Adams, Douglas: Dirk Gently s Holistic
Detective Agency; Performance by
Douglas Adams [SS]

McIntyre, Vonda N.: Star Trek: The Entro-
py Effect; Performance by George Takei
and Leonard Nimoy [SS]

McIntyre, Vonda N.: Star Trek: The First
Adventure; Performance by Leonard Nimoy
and George Takei [SS]

McIntyre, Vonda N.: Star Trek IV: The
Voyage Home; Performance by George
Takei and Leonard Nimoy [SS]

Hi-Tech

Asimov, Isaac: Isaac Asimov's Robot City:
Volume I: Odyssey by Michael P. Kube-
McDowell; Performance by Peter Mac-
Nichol [CA]

The Omni Audio Experience, Vol. 1: In-
cludes Ray Bradbury's 'And the Moon
Be Still as Bright" and "Off Season" from
The Martian Chronicles, and an inter-
view with Ray Bradbury [OA]

The Omni Audio Experience, Vol. 2: In-
cludes Arthur C. Clarke's "Rescue Party"
[OA]

AUDIO PUBLISHERS

The above listings are coded according to
their publishers:

BT Books on Tape, P.O. Box 7900, New-
port Beach, CA 92658-7900;
1-800-626-3333

CA Caedmon, 1995 Broadway, New York,
NY 10023; 1-800-638-3030; in Pennsyl-
vania, 1-800-982-4377
LL Listening Library, One Park Avenue,
Old Greenwich, CT 06870;

1-800-243-4504

LP Listen for Pleasure, One Columbia
Drive, Niagara Falls, NY 14305;
1-800-451-9518

NA New American Audio, 1633 Broadway,
New York, NY 10019; (201) 387-0600
OA Omni, Audio Dept., 200 N. 12th St.,
Newark, NJ 07107; 1-800-221-1777
RH Random House Audio, 201 E. 50th
St., New York, NY 10022; 1-800-638-6460
SA Spoken Arts, P.O. Box 289, New
Rochelle, NY 10802; 1-800-537-3617
SS - Simon & Schuster Audio, 1230 Ave-
nue of the Americas, New York, NY
10021; (201) 767-5937 ■

TWILIGHT ZONE 97

CLASSIFIEDS

TZ Classifieds bring results! Reaching nearly 350,000 readers,* they’re one of the magazine
world's biggest bargains. The cost, payable in advance, is $2.00 per word ($2.50 for words
FULLY CAPITALIZED). There is a twenty-word minimum; phone numbers with area codes count
as one word. (No discounts are applicable.) Please send your ad copy, with payment, to: Twilight
Zone Magazine, Att’n.: Belinda Davila, Classified Ad Dept., 401 Park Avenue South, New York,
NY 10016-8802. Deadline for the Aug. 1989 issue is April 1, 1989; for the Oct. 1989 issue,

it’s June 1, 1989.

'Globe Research Subscriber Survey, 1987

BOOKS/MAGAZINES/CATALOGS

WORLD’S LARGEST OCCULT, Mystic arts,
Witchcraft, Voodoo. 7000 curios, gifts, books. 3
fascinating 1989 catalogs, $1.00. By airmail,
$2.00. Worldwide Curio House, Box 17095T,
Minneapolis, MN 55417.

STEPHEN KING COLLECTIBLESI Over 150
magazine appearances (stories— articles— inter-
views); first editions; movie and book promo
material. Write for an amazing 10-page list:
TIME TUNNEL, 313 Beechwood Ave., Middle-
sex, NJ 08846.

OCCULT CATALOG. 270 Pages! Oer 10,000
books, jewelry, herbs, oils, candles, religious
goods, metaphysical supplies. Catalog $1.00. In-
ternational Imports. 236-A West Manchester Ave-
nue, Los Angeles, CA 90003.

HMMO DIFFERENT MOVIE A MOVIE STAR
POSTERS. Catalog $2.00. Mnemonics LTD.,
Dept. “K.” #9, 3600 21 St. NE, Calgary,
Alta., T2E 6V6, CANADA. Credit card orders
1-800-661-9482.

I’VE BEEN SELLING reasonably priced out-of-
print fantasy paperbacks, hardcovers, and
magazines since 1967. Write for my free month-
ly catalogs. Pandora’s Books, Box T-54, Neche,
ND 58265.

FREE MOVIE POSTER CATALOG! Old and

new. Fast service /Lowest prices. Luton’s,
Box 27621-T, Memphis, TN 28127.

IS THE CENTAURI PARTICLE THE ULTIMATE
PARTICLE IN THE UNIVERSE? FOR MORE
INFORMATION, SEND $9.95 TO: Dr. Bertram
Brown, 47 W. Mercury Blvd., Hampton, VA 23669.

VAMPIRE VIGNETTES©: Quarterly fiction jour-
nal for horror/vampire buffs. Unusual fiction,
yearly contests, book reviews, more! Yearly sub-
scription (4 issues) $12.00, V 2 year (2 issues,
Fall/Winter or Spring/Summer) $6.00. Single is-
sue $3.00. Sample copy $2.50. V.v. Press, P.O.
Box 682, E. Long., MA 01028.

BEST IN MOVIE POSTERS— ALL CURRENT
RELEASES — 1940’s to present — Sci/Fi-Horror-
Foreign-Rock. Best selection— lowest prices. $2
catalog. WORLD OF CINEMA, 488 Henley
Ave., New Milford, NJ 07646.

BARKER , KINO , KOONTZ , LAN8PALE and

many other Horror/Dark Fantasy authors avail-
able in limited first editions— PARK HARVEST
TITLES — and paperbacks. Numerous. Send
S.A.S.E. for current list. Michael Sellard, Box
836, Hallandale, FL 33008.

STARDATE. S.F. bulletin. Trivia, news, astrono-
my. $1.50 or $18 a year subl Pen pal ads want-
ed. $5.00, 4 lines, 50 spaces. Stardate, 3646
Sandra N., Salem, OR 97303.

STEPHEN KING Books For Sale: many first
editions. Write to: Al Aiello, Box 1045 Pawtucket,
Rl 02862 or call 401-725-8252.

SERVICES

WITCHCRAFTS Harness its powers. Gavin and
YVonne will teach you how. Box 1502-TZ, New
Bern, NC 28560.

MISCELLANEOUS

GET PAID for mailing letters! $200.00 daily. Write:
PAASE-MF9, 161 Lincolnway, North Aurora, IL
60542.

GET PAID for reading books! Write: Pase — BV8,
161 Lincolnway, North Aurora, IL 60542.

PURITAN’S PRIDE— Discount-priced natural vita-
mins. Free catalog. Over 400 items. Natural vita-
mins, diet and beauty aids, all at fantastic
factory-direct prices. Puritan Pride Dept. TZ, 90
Orvile Dr., Bohemia, NY 11716.

TZ QUIZ ANSWERS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 42

ANSWERS

IL. Richard Matheson, screenwriter
2E. John Badham, director/producer
3F. George Clayton Johnson,
screenwriter

4K. Charles Beaumont, screenwriter
5J. Rod Serling, screenwriter
61. Robert Bloch, screenwriter
7H. Buck Houghton, producer
8B. Richard Donner, director
9C. Douglas Heyes, screenwriter
10G. Joe Alves, art director
11A. Steven Spielberg, director
12D. Jeannot Szwarc, director

BONUS QUESTION:

PATTERNS

98 TWILIGHT ZONE